


Tales of the 90s Movie Turtles

by Generic_Writers_Name



Series: Ninja Turtles - The 90s Movies Continuing Adventures [2]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990s Movies), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: 1990s, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Comedy, Fantasy, Martial Arts, Matter of Life and Death, Pop Culture, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-03-07 05:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13427442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Generic_Writers_Name/pseuds/Generic_Writers_Name
Summary: The ongoing adventures of the live-action Turtles from the 1990s movies - The Turtles undergo a metamorphosis, join a league of New York based heroes and encounter invaders from another dimension. Meanwhile, an old enemy grows stronger…





	1. The Feast of Even Stephen

* * *

**Note:** This follows on from my earlier novel-length story, _Day of the Rat_. It was set between movies II and III, and this one will be too, initially, before moving on to continue the adventures of the Turtles, plus their friends and enemies, beyond movie III.

Rather than a single story, _Tales_ will be an ongoing series of shorter story arcs.

* * *

 **Disclaimer:** The Turtles and associated characters don't belong to me. The story is for my own entertainment and hopefully that of a few others. I don't own any of these toys; just playing with them.

* * *

_"MEEE-EEEHHH-EEEHHH-EEEERRRYYY CHRISTMAS!"_

The rasping voice blared across the main floor of the darkened department store, making the gang of men with stockings stretched across their faces flinch as one. "Will you just shut that damn thing off...?!"

"Hey, I'm trying. The off switch doesn't work."

"Give it here..." Feeling ridiculous, the leader snatched the toy from his fellow criminal's hands. Giving up on getting the off switch to co-operate, he finally pulled out the batteries and threw them to the floor in a fit of pique.

"Seriously...!" the other man ranted. "Who the hell markets a creepy Christmas clown? I say _creepy_ clown, as if there's any other kind..."

"Could you just focus on the job in hand, huh? We _are_ supposed to be robbing this place!"

"Whoa!"

"What?" He stormed over to another of his gang, to find the man jumping back from where one of those Ninja Turtle full-size head masks was resting on a counter. If anything it was even creepier than the clown - Its eyes, showing through the slits in the purple cloth band, seemed to follow you as you moved around. Clever, though. Kids' toys these days were sometimes pretty cool.

"That thing _moved_."

"Just find the safe, OK?!" he said dismissively. Once the others were out of sight, though, he did lean closer to the Turtle suspiciously. It did look kind of lifelike...

"Hi!" it piped up. He sprang back - startled was a word that barely covered his reaction. "Iiiiiii... aiiint got no booo-ooo-ooodyyy...!" it sang, head swaying in time with the music.

"Here...!" he yelped to the others. "Over here!"

"You _guys_..." said Donatello as he emerged from behind the counter. "We've been waiting here simply _forever..._ "

"Yeah" said Raphael, right behind him. "That's right. Waiting. You guys might wanna try being a little less predictable."

The others came running back, another Turtle on their heels - Michelangelo was swinging a yo yo around his head delightedly. "That's right, amigos... It's us! Happy holidays!"

"Miss us?" Leonardo was blocking the way they had arrived, arms folded but hands never straying far from the hilts of his swords. He stared the lead criminal out with hooded eyes - If anything Leo looked disappointed with him. "I can't believe we're here again" he said quietly.

The leader nodded slowly, and slapped a hand to his forehead. "Thank... Thank _God_ you're here!" he cried. "We just got here, and... and some people were robbing the place, and we thought... We thought... _Oh no_ , we thought, we'll be blamed for this, and we found these _stockings_ on the floor... You know... They must have dropped them - Like your friend's glove! Yeah... Remember we helped you - _I helped you_ find your friend... Uh... How is she? Is she doing OK now...? I hope so... She certainly looked, uh, nice... Uh, _well_ , on TV last night... Uh, you're not buying this, are you...?"

The Turtles looked around each other, as if to wordlessly compare their take on the situation, and as one shook their heads. Not buying it.

"I tell you what..." he said, picking up the scary Christmas clown casually. "Uh... We'll leave right away. It's absolutely right that we should be made to leave right away!" He moved toward the exit. "Come on!" Leonardo stayed blocking the way.

"Nuh-uh" he said. "You're staying right here till we invite the cops to this little party. I warned you last time. You should have listened. Now we're even."

The man nodded. "Yeah, you're right..." he said, before, in an act of pure desperation, not expecting to actually achieve anything, he threw the toy clown at Leonardo and tried to skip around him. Sighing, Leo caught the clown and spun on his heels to try to intercept the man - and fell heavily as he stumbled over the discarded batteries on the ground.

Not believing this good fortune, the man wasted no time and ran at full pelt out the door, the others close behind him.

Raphael stooped over to check Leonardo was all right. "You, OK, Leo?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine..." he said testily. "Get after them!" As Raphael and Michelangelo raced off in pursuit, Donatello helped Leo up. "I saw the batteries, Don, I really did. I just forgot about them."

"Are you really OK?"

"I'm just feeling a little woozy. I'll be fine"

"Like before?"

"A little worse."

"Well, I'll check you out when we get back."

"OK, Doctor Don. I'll humor you." He looked up as the others returned. "You get them?"

"Too much of a start" said Raphael. "Nicely done, fearsome leader." He looked a little regretful as Donatello quickly shook his head at him. "...Sorry, Leo, it's just... Those guys have been giving us trouble for a while now." He clapped his brother's shoulder. "You OK?"

"I'll be better if you all just stop asking me that" Leonardo said irritably as they walked toward the exit. "Let's just get back, and chalk this one up to experience, huh?"

"Hey, look on the bright side" said Donatello. ""Only a few more sleeps till Christmas."

"So...?" demanded Raphael.

"So get with the program, Raph. You gotta discover the true meaning of Christmas."

"Which is...?"

"Presents" suggested Michelangelo.

"No" said Donatello sagely.

"What then?" Raphael was impatient now.

"Leo, help me out, will you?" Leonardo just looked annoyed - Clearly he was more ill than he was letting them see. Donatello sighed. "Mikey? One more try?"

"...Old movies on TV!"

"Yes!"

"Yeah, but there are no new episodes of stuff..." said Raphael, sulky.

"Raph's still getting _MacGyver_ withdrawal" explained Michelangelo.

"Is that an actual medical condition?"

"You bet your _bo_ it is."

* * *

 _"It don't matter if you're black or white..."_ That message, tinny but undeniably catchy, was issuing from a lot of radios all over the city of New York in the week before Christmas in the year nineteen-ninety t-

_-Ooh! The light's changed._

With the pent-up traffic held in check, April O'Neil took the opportunity while she could to hurry across the road along with the mass of other pedestrians, swathed in thick layers of clothing, breath misting in the air. All these people were busy, no doubt, but few could be quite as busy as her - After all, she wasn't unique in having a career, but how many of them had a whole secret life as well...?

And then of course there was Christmas. She shuddered at the thought of the Thanksgiving turkey pizza, and wondered what would be in store for _this_ holiday...

So, anyway. Black, white, all good, but it seemed a lot of people still drew a line at being green. Despite recent events, the city wasn't quite ready for mutant Turtles. Which was a shame, particularly as it would be in a pretty bad situation right now if it wasn't for them.

Thinking of that weekend almost two months ago now, where the fate of the city had hung so precariously in the balance, ran April through a range of conflicting emotions. The Rat King had come within a whisker - _yeah_ \- of conquering New York, and had meant for the world to follow. But she had seen more of him than that, and thinking of him made her sad in a way that was difficult to pin down.

Lost in this thought, not for the first time, she _almost_ missed it. She had to stop, backtrack, and stare disbelievingly into the frosted window display of the department store.

April smiled. _This_ would make the guys' Christmas.

* * *

"Mikey..." Raphael snapped. "Would you just stop playing with Little Mikey? Even for a second...?"

"Uh... Care to rephrase that, Raph?" asked Donatello.

"Y'know what...? No, not really."

"Thanks again, April!" said Michelangelo, looking over his shoulder at their guest, holding up the six-inch tall plastic action figure. _His_ figure. _His_ likeness. They all had one, and they were all kind of pleased about it, but Mikey was by some distance the most pleased.

 _"One word - image rights"_ Raphael had said, soon after April had come down the ladder into their subway station refuge and distributed her bounty - _"That's two words"_ Donatello had pointed out - but April managed to catch Raph handling mini-Raph with a faint smile on his face, and knew she had done the right thing.

There had been no Splinter figure, perhaps because the Turtles' sensei was not such a public figure, or maybe they were keeping him for a new batch of toys next year in a shrewd marketing ploy - Whatever it was, Splinter was as sanguine about it as he was about pretty much everything else.

In fact, the only one who hadn't responded so well to her presents, and in fact her visit, was Leo. Something was very wrong. He freely admitted to feeling ill, but April had caught sight of him a couple of times when he thought no one was looking, and she knew it was worse than he was saying. The others weren't talking about it, and she went along with that. For now.

Another topic usually off limits was broached, as one of them was almost contractually obliged to do on special occasions like this, when Donatello asked "So... Anyone heard from Casey since...?" There was a few uncomfortable moments while they all indicated they hadn't, and that was that. Something else April was trying not to worry about. OK, _maybe_ they weren't a couple after all, but she still cared about him, and he had been away far longer than she ever thought he would be.

So, they all kept up the _joie de vivre_ and pretended nothing was wrong. Hey, it really was Christmas.

* * *

"What is the condition of the patient?" The same question every time. The young Japanese woman stood there, face impassive, waiting for an answer.

Doctor Aristotle Brewer sighed, and turned to her. "He's coming along nicely." he said, and winking at her, he added "Not long now, and he'll be done to a turn." She somehow managed to resist his charm, yet again.

Since she was still standing there, apparently expecting more, he went on. "Mister Oroku has been through a lot, obviously... I think what I've done here is going to make history. The first man to come back from the dead... Just think what he can tell us..."

"Yes" she replied, without changing her expression, and at that she turned and walked off.

Brewer sat back in his chair and surveyed his makeshift laboratory thoughtfully. Remarkable. Obviously the young woman was remarkable, but what took him aback was that, for the first time, she had appeared to engage with something he had said as something more than raw data. Maybe progress was being made on more than one front.

"Well, Miss Karai..." he mused. "You are full of surprises."

* * *

Splinter got on the phone early the next day - a definite sign something was very wrong - and April rushed back to the Turtles' lair. Things were indeed bad. Leo was unconscious, his breathing fitful, and the other three Turtles were experiencing the same symptoms he had shown the day before. Dizzy and weak, the three of them huddled together on one sofa while Leo was stretched out on another.

April and Splinter shared a look - _What are we going to do?_ This was that rarest of situations - one where the Turtles' sensei was out of his depth.

April, however, had an idea almost right away. "Look..." she said, searching through her bag, "He did say, if there was ever an emergency..." She pulled out a notepad, and hurriedly searched through the pages. "Ah ha!"

She ran to the public phone that Donatello had fixed up, and dialed. "Go with me on this one, OK...?" she reassured Splinter before giving the phone her full attention. "Yeah, hi... I'd like to talk to Professor Jordon Perry, please... Yeah, it's pretty urgent... Uh... Yeah, tell him... Tell him it's a matter relating to a Mr _Bartholomew Simpson_. Yeah, that's right. OK, I'll hold..."

* * *

Leonardo used the time to meditate. He was in the dark, and he didn't know where he was, but he felt strangely calm about it. Though he couldn't see them - He could after all see nothing except, strangely enough, his own body in its lotus position - he somehow knew the others were close by. Raphael. Michelangelo. Donatello. He could hear their faint, regular breathing, and if he concentrated he could almost hear their thoughts.

_Pizza._

_Thanks, Michelangelo. Very useful.  
_

No, wait. That was his own thought. Leo felt vaguely annoyed at himself - There was, after all, more to life than pizza.

_Whoa._

Was this... enlightenment?

He looked around the environment they had found themselves in, feeling curiosity for the first time. Nothing but blackness. No, wait... He could make something out now. A wall. A brick wall, rounded, curving toward - No, it was all one rounded structure. A tunnel. Like the sewer tunnels he was so used to, but with one important difference. The ground he was sitting on was dry.

Dry, and kind of warm.

He could see the others now. The three of them were, like him, peering around curiously. Trying to make sense of this situation. They didn't realize yet that it just didn't matter.

 _"Are we dead?"_ pondered Michelangelo quietly.

Donatello was the first to stand up - Naturally, he was also the first to offer a rationalization. "Guys... This isn't real..." _Oh._ Now Leo thought about it that way, that did make sense. He was about to try and explain that it was OK when Donatello continued.

"It's the Rat King" he said. "He's got us again. We're all in a trance and he's in our minds. We gotta resist, guys. Resist!"

 _"Guys... Maybe we're dead..."_ said Michelangelo again.

"There's no Rat King any more, Don" Raphael tried to reassure him, and he patted the wall hesitantly. "These bricks are kinda... soft." What kinda place is this?" Then, at the same time as Leonardo and Donatello, he finally heard what Michelangelo had been saying. They all looked at each other.

"I think I'm right, guys..." Michelangelo concluded. "I really think we might be dead."

* * *

**Next: Robyn and the Hoods**


	2. Robyn and the Hoods

April put the phone down and turned to Splinter, trying to hide just how distraught she was. The Turtles' sensei - no, scratch that, the Turtles' father - looked at her expectantly. "That was his secretary..." she said with fake cheeriness, trying not to alarm Splinter unduly. "At least... one of them. She said she would, uh, give him a message."

Splinter's head bowed slightly as he thought. At last he responded. "You are not convinced."

"I think we've just been fobbed off..."

"I see."

"If I could just talk to Professor Perry... I know he would help us."

"What do you think we should do now...?"

"Uh..." April perched on the arm of the sofa Leonardo was lying on, looking down at him, then over at the others huddled unconscious on the sofa opposite. She was strangely touched by the quiet confidence Splinter's question placed in her, but also... _No pressure, huh?_

"You know..." she said. "Luckily, I got access to certain resources... Maybe I can just track down exactly where the Professor really is right now and approach him directly... Cut through the red tape."

"You must proceed as you think best."

"The only thing is, time... We may not have much..."

"My sons are strong... And I will do what I can... Go, April. They will still be here when you get back."

April took a deep breath, and finally went over and laid a hand on Splinter's shoulder. "OK." Grabbing her coat and bag, she rushed to the exit. "I'll be back soon!"

As soon as she was up the ladder and out of sight, Splinter seemed to slump slightly. Suddenly looking very old, he moved over to stand between the two sofas and looked back and forth between his four charges. Then, sitting down, he closed his eyes and gave a long sigh, expelling all the air from his lungs. He stayed there, concentrating.

* * *

The Turtles advanced along the tunnel, weapons in hand and held in readiness. "Guys...?" Donatello ventured. "Does anybody find it strange...?"

"Find what strange, Don?" responded Leonardo.

"That we have these..." Donatello shifted his grip on his _bo_ staff to show what he meant. Their weapons.

"Hmmm..." Raphael looked at his sais. "You know, you've got a point."

"Maybe..." began Michelangelo, and gathered his thoughts. "It's like Master Splinter always said. These weapons are a part of us... _Make them a part of you_ , didn't he used to say that?"

"Yeah..." Leonardo confirmed, and looked closely at the blade of one of his swords. "They've still got the little scratches made by other blades. That's kinda weird."

"When did Mikey get philosophical?" pondered Donatello.

"I've always been philosophical... It's just you don't listen."

"Well, philosophilize this..." Raphael challenged him. "How do we get out of here?"

That had them all stumped.

* * *

"Irma... What are you doing in this early? In fact, isn't today your day off?" April left her bag and coat in her office and moved into the main part of the Channel Three newsroom, noticing the slight figure hunched over one of the desks.

"Well, hey..." Irma said lightly. "I could ask you the same question... If you, um, weren't my boss, that is."

"Ask away..." April said brightly, then added, rather more quietly "But of course, as your boss, I don't have to tell you the answer." She smiled. "Right?"

"Nope."

April sat at a nearby desk and switched on the computer, impatiently waiting for it to start up. "Really, though, what are you doing here?"

"Research... Uh, catching up on some research."

"Research, huh? Care to share?"

Irma shifted a little in her chair. "Not _really_... It's early days... Ever had a hunch?"

April just raised an eyebrow.

"So, just researching. Researching the heck out of it."

"Well, I approve." April tapped furiously at the keyboard, leaning over to look closely as information scrolled across the screen.

"Oh yeah, research is vital..." Irma asserted. "You don't wanna go on air with a few vaguely plausible-sounding phrases, while skimming over details and hoping your structure and a few jokes make it all work." April gave her a curious look, and even Irma herself seemed confused about what she had just said.

"Anyway..." she continued. "Mine's hit a bit of an impasse. Can I help with whatever you're doing?"

"I'm trying to track someone down" April replied. "Kinda urgently. And it's... not going so well."

"Well, uh... My researching skills are at your disposal."

"You know what?" said April. "You're on."

* * *

Karai surveyed the assembled Foot ninja below her. She didn't go in for obvious displays of emotion, but anyone who knew her well, and that was definitely a short list, would have recognized the disappointment on her face. The warehouse currently housing the Foot in New York was vast, but really they didn't need that sort of space. In fact, it just drew attention to how depleted their numbers were.

More than half were the men and women Karai had brought with her from Tokyo. The others... She doubted them, to put it somewhat mildly. They were the dregs of the dregs. This was what she had to work with, to form a fighting force worthy of lord Shredder when he resumed his command.

 _No_ , she decided. It would not do.

* * *

April couldn't believe she was doing this. As she crouched next to the wire fence, trying to stay unnoticed, cutting enough of a gap to gain access to the TGRI facility, she experienced a moment of panic. Then remembered the reason - Her friends. The Turtles. Without Professor Perry's help, they might die. That couldn't be allowed to happen.

_So calm down. Focus._

And she was through. She ran to the nearest access point to the main building. Both the Turtles and the Foot had recently snuck in here - How difficult could it be?

Actually, it _was_ surprisingly easy. Soon, she was wandering through the corridors - No need to sneak around in here, she was alone. This place, this top secret facility, was empty. Where was everybody?

A couple of times, when half-way along a corridor, she found herself turning, certain she had seen something move at the end - but every time there was nothing there. Enough to give a ghost the creeps.

No, really, there definitely _was_ something there that time! "Stop it!" she said. "Just come out and talk, OK? I know I'm not supposed to be here, but I have to see him." No one emerged, but she was no less certain of being watched.

Oh, what the hell - If that was how they wanted to play it.

"Professor?! Are you there?!" she called. Realizing that might not narrow it down enough if the staff of this place really were here somewhere, she expanded that to "Professor Perry!"

Silence.

"Is, um, _anyone_ there...?"

* * *

[ _"Intruder alert."_

_"Show me."_

_"There. A human. I don't know which one. They all look the same to me."_

_"That's racist."_

_"Snowflake."_

_"You know very well that's an anachronistic reference, so stop it."_

_"Shall we destroy the human?"_

_"On no account... Yes, I know this one. Wait. See what transpires..."_ ]

* * *

Very reluctantly, April found herself squeezing back through the gap she had cut in the fence, with nothing achieved. She felt so helpless. Without the Professor...

"Hold it right there!"

"Uh..." In her surprise, April found herself holding her hands up, before quickly putting them down again. "Hi...!"

"Hi yourself" said the stocky figure who approached her warily. An NYPD cop, hand poised near his gun. Maybe she had been right to raise her hands.

"I'll deal with this." The cop waved dismissively at someone off to the side, and April turned to see a couple of private TGRI security guards standing there. Where had they come from?!

"Officer..." she said. "Can I help you?"

"Can you help me? Yeah, I certainly hope so. You can tell me what you were doing in there."

"In there? Uh, I don't know. I was just out for a walk. Am I not supposed to go in there? Sorry. Won't happen again. Promise."

"All right" said the cop, losing patience. "What's your name?"

"OK. My, uh, name... Right..." April stalled. This situation was kind of getting out of hand. "Do you watch a lot of TV news?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It's, uh... Robyn." April surprised even herself with this. Fortunately she had left everything that might identify her back at Channel Three, but even so this was unlikely to be a wise thing to do.

"Robyn?"

"Yeah, that's right..." She felt a little offended that he would doubt her word.

"You got a last name? 'Cause, y'know, I got forms to fill in, that sorta thing." The cop had a nice line in thinly-veiled sarcasm.

"Last name? Oh, yeah... Williams." April replied, and winced a little when she realized what she'd just said.

The cop looked at her skeptically."Robin Williams?"

"Spelt with a _y_ " she added, then sighed.

"Which?"

"Would it help at all if I said both...?" The look the cop gave her suggested not. "OK, OK..."

April clasped her hands behind her, and let the cop cuff her wrists. She half-listened as he recited her rights in a bored monotone, then nodded farewell to the security guards with an expression that said _Thanks a lot, guys_ as she was led to his car.

* * *

[ _"She's getting away. Shall I have the law enforcement operative destroyed, and bring her back for processing?_ _"_

 _"That will not be necessary. I believe I know a better way to proceed."_ ]

* * *

"Hey, what's that...?" Leonardo peered ahead of them into the gloom of the seemingly endless tunnel. "I thought I could see some kinda light."

"I've never seen a sewer tunnel this long" said Raphael grimly.

"Or this clean..." added Donatello.

"I really don't think we're in Kansas any more, guys..." offered Michelangelo.

"I don't think we're in New York either" said Leonardo. "Wait, I really can see something up ahead. Look..."

"Don't look, Leo..." said Michelangelo. "Never look at the light, man... Never."

"I agree with Mikey, Leo..." said Raphael, then looked surprised at what he had said. "Don't go to the light."

"I don't know, guys..." Leonardo pondered. "Maybe that's what we're supposed to do..."

"And when have we ever done what we're supposed to do...?" Raphael demanded. "If we wanna get out of here, I think what we gotta do is fight."

"Fight what?"

"Whatever there is!"

"Well, we must have these weapons for a reason..." offered Donatello. "It kinda makes sense..."

"The way I see it" said Leonardo decisively, "We got two choices right now... Either we wander here for who knows how long, or we take our chances with whatever's waiting for us up ahead... What do we do, guys? Forward, and face whatever comes...? Or retreat?"

"Well, if you put it that way..." said Raphael.

Leonardo did what he did best. He led them. Into the light.

* * *

**Next: Limbo is a Place on Earth**


	3. Limbo is a Place on Earth

"OK... I was just in at the cells a moment ago..."

"Yeah...?" In the middle of the busy precinct, the cop who had arrested "Robyn" turned to face his colleague.

"Yeah... You, uh, really don't know who she is, huh?"

"I got a name for her, but I'm pretty sure"-

-"I think the Lieutenant needs to make a call."

* * *

One phone call. That was what April was entitled to, and she was going to make it count. Hopefully. She clasped the receiver tightly, counting the seconds, willing someone, anyone, to answer at the other end.

_Finally!_

"Oh... Hi... I was... Oh, right, yeah, you remember... Yes, that was me. Thanks... Yeah. So, about that... Oh. You have. And you got through? You told him about...? Yeah. Oh, thanks, yeah. You've, uh, made my day, quite frankly... 'Bye."

She put the receiver down, drained. Mission accomplished - Kind of. Suddenly, Professor Perry's secretary was very helpful, and according to her he had gotten the message and had dropped everything to go and help her friends. The Turtles _were_ going to get help, and she just had to hope it wasn't going to be too late.

And, of course, somehow she had to get out of the situation she had gotten herself mixed up in. Just when did life get so complicated...?

_Oh, yeah. It started with a sai._

* * *

"Now this..." said Michelangelo, "This is not what I expected."

"I don't think it's what any of us expected, Mikey..." said Leonardo.

They had found themselves standing on what seemed to be a massive moving escalator with very broad steps at least fifteen feet across, stretching ahead up and up and up into the distance, and when they looked down the steps stretched down just as far that way too. Further than they could see. If they looked off to the side, past the ornate balustrade... No, best not to. That was just... space. Nothingness.

"This is a little familiar..." said Donatello.

"Yeah" replied Raphael. "I know what you mean, I just can't put my finger on it."

"Hey..." said Michelangelo. "Look up there... There's somebody up there..."

He was right. A figure soon resolved into being, walking down the steps toward them, totally against their gentle upwards motion but apparently without much effort. As the Turtles watched in astonished fascination, the figure became human. Then a man. Then a man in some kind of uniform. Then clearly an airman, World War Two era, with a heavy fur-lined leather jacket, hat and goggles. He jogged down the last few steps to stand level with them, and looked at them cheerfully.

The man seemed to expect them to say something, but the four of them resolutely stayed silent. _Make the first move, dude._

At last, the man spoke. "What ho!" he greeted them.

* * *

"Miss O'Neil" Already seated, Sterns greeted April as she was led into the interrogation room. "Just look what had to happen for us to talk like this."

"Have we met...?" April pointed at him as she was taken to the seat opposite him, and it was made clear she was expected to sit. She sighed - this day was just getting better and better.

"Oh, that's right, we're somebody else right now, aren't we...? " Sterns smirked. "You know, I regret it had to go this far, but you've turned down all my requests for an interview..."

"Appreciating the irony, Chief."

"I knew you would." He leaned forward. "So, shall we start with the obvious stuff? Why were you...?" He seemed to search for further words, hunching his shoulders and gesturing with his hands, at a loss. "...Basically, just why?"

"It's a long story... What about you...? We, uh, haven't had a chance to talk since... Well, you know, since."

"I've waited a long time to be able to say this, Miss O'Neil, but... I'm asking the questions."

" _Yeah_ , but, really... The Turtles, the rats... More rats... You remember all that, right...? I kinda thought it might put a different complexion on things for you..." She could have sworn, just for a moment, that she saw Sterns' brow twitch. She had hit a nerve - pretty much literally.

"You mean the incident two months ago when the Foot Clan, a known terrorist organization, launched a nerve gas attack on the city and induced widespread hallucinations...? Hallucinations that even I wasn't immune"- He wiped a bead of sweat as it rolled down his forehead and took a breath. "Is that what you mean?"

"Oh, _come_ on!" April interrupted. "You can't possibly believe that..." She stood up, but sat again when Sterns looked pointedly at her. _OK, Chief... Make your play..._

"Why?" he asked. "You have an alternative explanation for the events at that time?" He leaned forward again. "I'd be very interested to hear that explanation... _On the record._ "

_Nice. You're smarter than you look, Chief._

"Or perhaps..." he continued. "You'd rather just tell me how a fine upstanding citizen - and that really was how I had you pegged, whatever our differences - ended up getting caught breaking into private property...?"

"Private property? There's more going on there, Chief - We both know that. Anyway, we could go on like this forever... All it was - I was out for a stroll, there was a misunderstanding. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time - _Now_ , you know me, that sounds like me, doesn't it?" She winked at him, and sat back with her hands clasped in front.

_Stalemate._

Sterns considered for a while, then at last he spoke again. "Most likely, I won't be bringing any charges."

"Well, I appreciate that"-

-"That's the good news. Here is the bad news."

"Right..."

"I can hold you for twenty-four hours..."

"But you're not going to...?

"You're almost right."

"Well"-

-"Just one word out of place, really. I _am_ going to." He got to his feet, and made ready to leave. April looked ready to protest, but thought better of it.

"So..." he finished. "Enjoy your night at Central... Miss Williams."

* * *

In the Turtles' lair, Splinter sat where he had now been for several hours. Still deep in concentration. On either side, the Turtles slept, barely breathing, vital signs down to almost nothing. Splinter's eyes, hidden beneath heavy lids, moved rapidly from side to side, the only activity in his otherwise motionless body.

 _"My sons..."_ he murmured. _"Hear me..."_

* * *

The Turtles and their strange new acquaintance stood on the vast escalator as it continued its ascent, seemingly to nowhere. The new arrival seemed amused by their questions. "Don't worry, chaps..." he reassured them. "Soon be there..."

"Soon be where...?" Raphael demanded.

"Oh..." the man said, "I really thought you might have your own ideas about that by now, old son."

"Not your son, pal..." Raph said sourly.

"I should think not..." the man replied good-humoredly. "But I'd be very proud if you were... Oh yes, I think you'll find yourselves very welcome. You have a lot of admirers, you know..."

"Admirers...?" Leonardo mused.

"Yes... Heroism like yours tends to attract them. Seriously, lads, I know you've sometimes felt a little underappreciated down there, but where we're going you'll find a lot of people have a much broader understanding of just what you've achieved."

"'Bout time" said Raphael.

"Quite so!"

"Who are you?" asked Donatello quietly.

"Oh, now, there's a question..." the man said. "I'm not really here, you know. Well, that is to say, I am here, but I'm not me. He's up there somewhere. I'm merely an echo of myself. If you see what I'm saying..."

"I understand perfectly" said Michelangelo.

"Do you?" asked Donatello. Michelangelo shrugged.

"Anyway, it's my job to show you where to go... And provide a friendly face... That goes a long way to helping people acclimatize themselves..."

"And what if we don't?" asked Leonardo.

"I beg your pardon?"

"What if we don't accept it? What if we go back down those steps?"

"I honestly don't know, old chap. Hasn't been done in a long time. I should advise against it, though."

"Turn round, guys..." said Leo. "We're going home." The others, even Raphael, obeyed without question and started back down the steps after him.

"Oh... I'm really not sure..." The airman pursued them, and called down. "Stop, please. Just for a moment. Let me talk to you."

Leo turned. "OK. Shoot."

"Look, fellas, if you are really set on this, there is actually a formal way to go about it. The authorities may be a little stern, but they're not heartless."

"What do you mean?" asked Donatello.

"I mean... If you're really set on this, you can mount an appeal."

Leonardo looked round the others, and turned back to him. "Well then..." he said. "Appeal it is."

* * *

Central was what Chief Sterns had called it, but if April had expected to find herself anywhere so comfortingly familiar - in concept at least - as Central Booking she was soon corrected. She was actually taken to what the NYPD officers she overheard referred to as Off-Central, apparently a facility set up basically to act as a bin for the miscellaneous troublemaker. When she got out, she really would be looking into the legality of that, and just who OK'd such a facility, but for now it looked like she just had to put up with it.

She found herself in a large cell separated from the adjoining corridor by a wall of metal bars, shared with about half a dozen others, each allowed a bench to sit or lie on. So far, so grim. April very much doubted she would be getting much sleep, so it looked like long hours of staring at these bleak surroundings were what she could look forward to.

Maybe she could try talking to-

A glance at her fellow inmates, with their hard, lean faces and glassy eyes. Maybe not.

* * *

The vans pulled up as near to Off-Central as they could without immediately attracting attention. The doors opened, and shadows emerged. Ninja seemed to flow across the approaches to the complex, scaling fences as if they weren't even there. Guards were silently attacked and left unconscious. No alarms were raised.

Swiftly, almost effortlessly, Off-Central fell to the Foot Clan.

* * *

_Her father was here. Somehow. She didn't even think about that, didn't want to think about that. He was just alive... It was wonderful. But... Why was he saying that...? Why...?_

_"Da...? No, it is me. Don't you"- He didn't recognize her... Why didn't he?-_

_What was that...?_

Against all her expectations, April actually had managed to doze off for a while. It was impossible to tell day from night, so when she woke, mind still fuzzy, blinking against the artificial light, she had no idea what time it was. Or if that sound had been part of her dream... _Yeah_ , that... Well, she supposed, this place wasn't really likely to promote happy dreams.

The sound.

Something made her look over to a neighboring bench, and she made eye contact with her fellow prisoner. A girl. Must be at least seventeen, or she probably wouldn't be here, but she could have passed for younger. Dyed black hair. Icy green eyes. A wary attitude, and a manner that suggested she had seen a lot in such a short life. Too much.

"You heard it too?" the girl asked. Matter of fact, like it wasn't such a big deal, but tense. Ready to move.

April nodded slowly, sitting up. "I heard something."

"I think we're in trouble." That was just as calm and matter of fact too.

"Welcome to my world..." said April, and offered the girl a weak smile. By this time they could hear movement outside this particular section, heavy-booted feet running. Shouting. Even a couple of choked-off cries. Yeas, they really were in trouble.

The door to the section swung open with a thud as it impacted on the wall, and one of the NYPD guards fell in. Quickly followed by his assailants. Black-uniformed figures, graceful as cats, powerful as, well, bigger cats. April's heart sank.

The Foot.

* * *

"Where are we now...?" asked Leonardo. They had found themselves in an endless black void with no visible walls, ceiling or floor, but there was a flat even surface below them, slightly yielding and spongy, and illumination of some kind without any obvious source and casting no shadows. Off to the side, the airman looked disapproving. Maybe concerned was better way of describing it.

"It's not too late to back out of this, my friends..." he said. "No shame in it. No shame at all."

"What's happening here?"

"Well, as I understand it, this is your appeal. Now, normally that would consist of a formal arrangement of judge, jury _et all_... You know the sort of thing I mean, I'm sure... Somewhat adversarial, but nonetheless sort of reassuring..."

"But we're not normal, huh?"

"No indeed, and I mean that in the kindest possible way. You are very special. Unique. Well, sort of unique - We did have a chap a little like yourselves here not long ago. Just passing through, like..." He took a breath. "I'm somewhat in the dark as well, fellas... No pun intended. But as I understand it you get a somewhat different kind of appeal. It seems, since it's still touch and go regarding your Earthly forms, the very fact you've shown this sort of spirit is actually acting in your favor immensely...

Fighting spirit, you see. Speaking just for myself, off the record and everything, I thoroughly approve."

"Thanks."

"You're very welcome. But you see, it's not all good news... I say, what's that...?"

Ahead of them, faintly at first, but gaining substance the more they looked at it, a figure appeared before them. Small, sat on the ground... Splinter! The Turtles tried to move toward their sensei, but as they did, his image seemed to move back, staying at the same distance. Splinter looked up, directly at them.

"My sons..." he said. "Hear me..."

"We can!" said Leonardo. "We can hear you!"

"That's the very lad I was talking about" said the airman. "Jolly pleasant he was as well!"

"You must fight..." Splinter said. "Fight..." He faded away again, as if maintaining his form had just been too much.

He was gone.

"Well, that settles it..." said Raphael, turning to the others. "We fight."

"Indeed" said the airman. "I was coming to that. As I said, it's not all good news. The fact is, and this I can't say I approve of, we have another chap here, in limbo as it were, waiting for a final decision..."

"Who?" demanded Leonardo warily.

"You know him, I believe..." the airman explained, and stood back, arms folded. "He has been here for some time."

Where Splinter had been a moment ago, another figure appeared. A monstrous form, a man rigged out in steel armor, bristling with blades, his scarred face mostly concealed under a mask.

The Shredder.

* * *

 **Next: The Enemy** **  
**

 


	4. The Enemy

Splinter woke abruptly from the trance, and got to his feet. He felt in a pocket and found a handful of shurikens. Turning to the exit, he was ready to meet the intruder.

That intruder found Splinter waiting for him as he clambered awkwardly down the ladder into the disused subway station. Splinter relaxed. This visitor was expected. Hoped for, even.

"Where are they?" Professor Jordon Perry asked brusquely, shifting his grip on the heavy cloth-wrapped bundle he had brought with him. He followed Splinter down the steps into the main part the lair and over to the Turtles' prone forms on the two sofas.

"Yes... It's as I feared" he said. "Hence, this equipment."

Splinter stood back, feeling and even looking a little helpless. "What can be done?"

"Well..." the Professor said, unpacking the bundle, "The Turtles are probably experiencing further effects of the... the, uh, _ooze_ , for want of a better term... I prefer mutagenic gel, but ooze I suppose... does get the point across..." Noticing Splinter's impatience, he got to the point. "Well, you see, the ooze is still in their system, and as their biochemistry alters as they get older, the residual mutagen reacts, _or can react_ , in all sorts of unexpected ways."

"Your... _ooze_ is causing this...?"

"Yes..." Perry confirmed, crouching between the sofas, laying out the vials and canisters in front of him on the floor."I'm afraid your sons are undergoing... Well, puberty. As a parent, you have my sympathies."

If he was expecting Splinter to laugh, he was to be disappointed.

"...I'm going to attempt something. Something perhaps a little drastic, but only with your permission..."

Splinter's head bowed. "I have _no_ choice."

"The second stage of mutation is clearly too much for even a constitution as strong as theirs to take, it seems... So, I'm going to slow it right down." He unscrewed the top of the canisters and prepared to administer the substances contained within. "First, the anti-mutagen we developed to deal with Masters Rhazar and Tokha... Don't worry, Only a very modest quantity, we don't our boys here to revert to normal Turtles... That's the very last thing we want... No, we just want to control the rate of mutation and let the Turtles' own bodies cope with it..."

"Perhaps... I had best leave you to proceed..."

"Actually, once I've done this, I might need your help to move the Turtles... Do you have somewhere dark we could keep them...?"

* * *

The enemy. All their lives, the Turtles had known of him. To them, he had taken on a presence beyond that of a man. He was the bogey man who had terrified them when they were little. He was the shadow hanging over their origins. He was the terror waiting in the dark. To defeat him, once and for all, was their ultimate rite of passage. He was death itself.

He was Oroku Saki. The Shredder.

Furious, the Shredder tried to head straight for the Turtles, and unusually for them, such was their shock, their impulse was to step back. It was unnecessary, though, for Oroku Saki found himself blocked, imprisoned, by an invisible force. It looked like whatever powers held sway here weren't quite ready to let him loose.

"Oh, quieten down, you ridiculous man..." said the airman with his lip slightly curled, and turned to the Turtles. "All right, lads... I really cannot stress quite enough that you don't have to do this. You have nothing to prove against this oaf. And if you should choose to go ahead with it anyway, remember, much as I might _like_ to, I _cannot_ help you..."

"It's OK, pal... I think we got this covered" said Raphael, stepping forward.

Leonardo moved forward to join him. "What he said."

"If you're sure..." the airman said uncertainly, and with that he started to fade away.

"Hey!" shouted Michelangelo, trying to grab his insubstantial form. "Where 'ya' going...?"

Suddenly, the airman was back. "Well, you don't expect me to stay around and watch this ill-advised showing, do you...?" He gave a rueful shake of the head. "Not my thing at all. And, _frankly_ , not my genre." Then he really was gone.

The Turtles turned to the Shredder, all other thoughts dismissed. If this was a _showing_ , as the airman had put it... The show was on.

* * *

April shrank back against the wall of the cell, trying to make herself as small as possible and to keep her face turned away from the Foot ninja as they passed. The black-clad figures glided up and down the corridor adjacent to the cells, apparently looking for something, or _someone_ , in particular. "You OK?" asked the black-haired girl, seemingly unconcerned and taking the whole situation in her stride.

"You know..." April whispered to her, "I'm really _not_. Trust me, you do not want to attract those guys' attention." Cringing, she shrank back as another of the Foot ninja passed their cell, peering in at them through the bars.

"You don't wanna do that..." the girl said, lounging on her bench. "You'll just draw attention to yourself that way. Stare 'em out. Look like you own the place." She leaned closer, grinning. "In fact... Imagine them in their shorts. They don't seem so threatening then."

Despite herself, April couldn't help finding the idea funny, and suppressed a laugh. _Whoa._ Was she really so inured to danger now? "That's easy for you to say..." she confided. "You haven't experienced their hospitality... I have."

"Will they recognize you...?" the girl asked, chewing on her lower lip.

"I dunno... They might not be the same ones. But I'm not taking any chances. If I'm _very_ lucky, they'll get whatever they came for and leave, and they won't find out who I am..."

"Oh yeah...?" the girl mused, intrigued. "You important?"

"Well, _kinda_..." April replied. "Let's just say I'm well connected..."

"Any chance those connections could get you outta here?"

"That's a little complicated right now..." April said, downcast, as she remembered the Turtles' situation. "Oh..." She cast a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure none of the Foot were nearby. "I'm April, by the way..." she said, holding out her hand.

The girl actually started a little, surprised. She clasped the outstretched hand briefly, looking thoughtful. What she didn't do, pointedly, was offer a name of her own. After a few awkward moments, April gave up expecting to hear one.

Odd. Never mind.

"Yeah..." the girl said at last, decisive. "I'm gonna get you outta here." She straightened up, kneeling on her bench, and called out to one of the Foot. "Hey!"

The color drained from April's face, and she stared at the girl, mouth trying to form words and failing. _What...?!_ She felt rather than saw the Foot ninja looming up behind her.

"Hey!" the girl called again. "Do you know this lady...? She _sure_ knows you!"

* * *

Just like his adversaries, the Shredder had not been deposited in this place without a weapon, and _boy_ did he use it. He met attack after Turtle attack using his five-foot long halberd with seasoned skill, his movements swift and economical, his counter-attacks channeling his bottomless well of cold fury. After an initial flurry of combined attacks, the Turtles took it in turns, allowing the other three to rest -

\- _Here's the thing_ , thought Donatello. _If we don't have any physical bodies here, how come we get tired and out of breath - Ooh, my turn...!_ -

\- He used his staff to propel him forward and tried to land feet-first on the Shredder's head. For some reason, it didn't quite work out that way, and he landed in a heap on the floor. Where he immediately jumped to his feet and was back in the fray. _Scientist... Warrior... A Turtles for all seasons. That's me._

Michelangelo and Raphael tried close teamwork, but a rapid attack by nunchuk didn't distract their foe from the potentially lethal sai that came close to skewering him down low. No sooner was that tried, however, than the Shredder had to swiftly side-step a savage slash from one of Leonardo's swords - He very nearly stepped into the other sword, but somehow, they knew not how, he managed to avoid that too. He was agile for such a bulky figure.

"Give it up, Saki...!" yelled Leonardo as his sword locked with the business end of his enemy's halberd. "This isn't like last time... We've grown. You haven't."

"Is this where we talk for a while...?" pondered Michelangelo. The others gave him a look that said _ssshhh!_

The Shredder spun around, his glittery cloak billowing around him, and somehow, like some kind of two-bit stage magician, he was several feet away without them noticing how he had got there. _Not fair!_

"This was only a distraction..." he said menacingly. The sound of that voice, a voice they thought they would never hear again, made them all a little uneasy. No matter how much they pretended they found him ridiculous, they still harbored a fear of this man.

"You got more?!" demanded Raphael. "Then bring it on!"

The Shredder seemed to reach into the shadows enveloping them, and somehow managed to produce... a person! Another actual person who hadn't been there before. What the actual-

-"Great! Where the hell am I now. you overgrown novelty can opener...?!" Seeing the Turtles, the young woman with the unruly mane of light reddish-brown hair fixed on them delightedly with wide blue-grey eyes. "Guys! Am I glad to- ...be such a cliche... I know, right...?" She tried to tug free of the Shredder's grip, a difficult goal with her wrists shackled and chains wrapped around her. "Oh, you have just got to be kidding! Guys...! A little help here!"

Helping her was definitely on the Turtles to-do list, probably right at the top and to be actioned any second now, but all the same they allowed themselves a moment to be totally confused. Who was this woman who seemed to know them...? Then, almost at the same time that question formed they all knew the answer. One answer, prompting a million questions.

"April!" they all called.

"Uh, yeah... That's me!" she said. "Hi! Sorry, guys, need rescuing - I promise I will not be making a habit of this!"

"That's April..." said Michelangelo, thoroughly confused.

"Then who's...?" Raphael addressed the question that made them all start to question their grip on reality.

"That's... the other April."

"But I thought she was the only April..." said Michelangelo.

"Yeah, well... I think I remember thinking _that_ about _this_ one..." Raphael reasoned. "Why have I only just remembered that...?"

"One of them must be a fake" said Leonardo decisively.

"But which one?"

"Neither..." breathed the Shredder, making all heads turn to him. "It pleases me to see your confusion, but time is pressing... One friend... in two places... In one, about to be taken by my followers in the Foot Clan... Here and now... in far greater danger...!"

With that, he dragged "April" a few feet over to the side, and the Turtles saw that her hair and the Shredder's cloak started being whipped around by what seemed to be a very high wind. "You face a choice, Turtles!" said Oroku Saki. "Stay, and defeat me, and return to the living..." He pushed April forward, and now the Turtles got the sense that that she was poised on the edge of a narrow but very deep chasm. "Or..."

He let go, and a yelling April tumbled into the pit. The Turtles ran forward, not hesitating for a second, and one by one they dived in after her.

"Or fall into darkness. Forever..." said the Shredder.

* * *

**Next: A Matter of Life and Strife**


	5. A Matter of Life and Strife

"Ready...?"

"Ready."

Professor Perry and Splinter activated their fire extinguishers at the same moment, giving the prone Turtles a blast of carbon dioxide vapor. After a few seconds, Perry stopped and slammed the door of the storage cupboard closed with the Turtles on the cushion-strewn floor inside. He and Splinter wearily put the extinguishers aside and slumped onto the sofas.

"That's all we can do" said Perry. "Now it's up to them..."

* * *

The Turtles fell. Then fell. Then they fell some more. If the abyss was not bottomless, it was certainly very deep. So much so, they actually went past the hysterical screaming stage and, after a few intermediate stages, actually started to get a little bored.

The others settled for just falling, but Raphael gave himself more of a mission - Spreading his arms and legs wide, he tried to control his descent and shift over so he could make some attempt to catch April. Yes, that _was_ April, not that he could quite get his head around that contradiction quite yet.

She was some short distance below and ahead of them, and none of them could see her clearly, but the rattling of the chains the Shredder had put her in gave them some idea where she was. He reached out, straining to just brush the tips of his fingers on what he thought might be one of her feet...

Yes! He did it... He grabbed hold and tried to swing them both around as they fell so he could grab onto her properly and-

_Yikes-!_

"MEEEEEHHH-EEEEEEHHH-RRRYYY CHRIIISTMAS!" squawked the chained-up scary clown doll - exactly like the one from the department store only the size of a human - and Raphael freaked out. He spun round, losing his grip, and flailed around, panicking, till something else grabbed him - Michelangelo! And Leonardo! And Donatello!

The four of them rearranged themselves till they were facing in toward each other, ignoring the clown which now seemed to be falling parallel just to mock them. It was exactly like a parachute jump - only they didn't have parachutes and there may not even be a ground.

"Did you guys see that?!"

"Yeah, Raph..." said Leonardo, "I think it's safe to say we can't trust anything we see and hear in this place...!"

"But that was April...! Uh, _sorta_ , anyway! We all saw her!"

"I'm starting to think we didn't..." said Leonardo.

"Guys..." said Michelangelo. "I think that clown knows more than it's saying..."

* * *

The keys were quickly found on one of the unconscious guards, and the cell opened. April and the girl were dragged out into the corridor and bustled along by the Foot ninja until they were met with another group. The leader, the smallest among them but unmistakable due to the deference shown by the others, waited for an explanation.

" _These ones know us..._ " said one of the ninja, voice slightly muffled by his mask.

" _And...?_ " The leader's voice revealed her to be a woman, which took April a little aback, but really it was what was said next she was dreading to hear. She stole a quick glance at the girl... Had she really betrayed her...? Why was she so calm...?

" _I don't know._ " said the ninja. " _Just a feeling. I think we should take them back with us._ "

"Definitely..." said the girl. "You got yourselves a recruit here... A willing recruit... and one valuable prisoner. What do you say, huh...?" April looked askance at her, and tried to pull free from the Foot ninja holding her.

" _Yes..._ " said Karai. If the unnamed girl's interjection had made any difference to her, she gave no indication of it. " _Take them back to the vans, and bind them._ "

No sooner were those words spoken than they were roughly shoved back along the corridor. April writhed in the Foot ninja's grasp, but she knew from bitter experience how little that would achieve... "Thanks a lot", she hissed at the girl, who just looked at her blankly for a moment. Still ridiculously calm.

They got to the top of a flight of stairs, and April felt the Foot ninja's grip on her arms shift. At that moment, the girl made her move. Somehow, she turned in the other Foot ninja's grasp and when he tried to seize her again she let him roll right over her and plunge down the steps, neatly using his own aggressive tactics against him.

April's accompanying ninja hurried down after his tumbling colleague, dragging her with him, and the girl backed off as he approached. "The hell with this...!" said April, and taking advantage of his momentary vulnerability elbowed him in the solar plexus. Before he could recover she had turned and kicked him in the nuts. " _Thanks_ for underestimating me, _pal_..." she said, meaning it quite sincerely, and punched him in the face.

The girl, meanwhile, punched out her opponent too before he could get up, and turned to April. Their hands met in a totally spontaneous _gimme five_ maneuver, and April reappraised her mysterious companion. "I never doubted you... OK, that's a total lie."

"Fooled 'ya'..." The girl grinned, almost shyly, making herself look even younger than her years. Then looked alarmed, as she saw more Foot ninja nearing the top of the stairs. "Run!"

"Note to self..." April gasped as they did just that. "Less self-congratulation, more running..."

* * *

"Looks like this is it, guys... What a way to go..." said Donatello despondently.

"Yeah...?" responded Leonardo. "I kinda always thought we'd end up falling forever in a black void with a weird Christmas clown..."

"Are you hungry, Leo...?" Michelangelo inquired. "You always get cranky when you're hungry."

"Actually, Mikey, not so much. On account of not having a stomach! None of this is real!"

"Maybe that's it..." Donatello pondered. "Guys... I'm gonna try something..." He drew in lots of air, if air was really what they were breathing in this place, threw back his head and yelled "STOP!"

"Ge, Don..." said Raphael. "Why didn't I think of that?"

 _"Gentlemen..."_ said a disembodied voice. _"You need only have asked..."_

The Turtles and their curious guide were now back on the escalator, still ascending slowly - The Turtles stumbled dizzily as they suddenly found themselves vertical and on their feet.

The airman gave them a few seconds to get their bearings, then spoke."I hoped you would work it out."

"We could have stopped all that anytime we wanted..." said Donatello. "But that would have been to admit failure..."

"Well, yeah..." Raphael shuffled awkwardly. "It's obvious when you think about it..." Michelangelo nodded agreement.

Leonardo stepped up to look the airman in the eye. "So... Did we pass?"

"It's not so much a question of pass or fail... There is no _correct_ way to handle the test, you see... It's... The fact is, lads, I've been asked to convey the final decision... The whole situation is totally irregular, but the fact of the matter is, that's _how_ it is, and that's all there is to it."

"OK" said Leonardo, trying to figure out what that had meant. Were they going home or not?

"Leave this to me, guys..." said Michelangelo, stepping forward. In a curious accent, he intoned "Allright, chaps... pay attention... Fuffaw fuffawfaw... faw fawfaw faw... 'Zis is Night'awk..."

"Mikey really got into PBS, didn't he?" Donatello said to Leonardo.

Having listened to this, bemused, now the airman looked grim, and all his cheery bonhomie seemed to vanish. " _There is a threat to your world..._ Something quite unprecedented... And it is thought that all four of you still have an important part to play. That, and other factors, such as your youth, spirit, _and certain outside interventions_ , have gone very heavily in your favor... And let me put it this way, your willingness to make such a sacrifice for the sake of your friend didn't harm your chances any..."

"Yeah" Leonardo said earnestly. "What about April...? Is she really in danger...?"

"Often..." said the airman, faintly amused. "But these things have a way of sorting themselves out sometimes..."

"What does that mean...?"

"Never mind..." said the airman. "All in good time..."

"So, we're goin' back...?" said Raphael. "That's what that means, right...?"

"What is this threat...?" asked Donatello.

"Ah, there I can't be too specific... If you look, the early signs are there, I'm afraid... I really _am_ afraid it doesn't look good... You lads really will have your work cut out... It's all like nothing you've ever faced before."

"So what else is new?" commented Raphael.

"So I'm rather afraid I must send you back, m'boys..." the airman said, the cheery mask back in place. "Back down you go!"

"Just one more question..." said Leonardo. "How will we know...? This threat, when it comes?"

"Oh, you'll know, old son... _You'll know..._ "

* * *

Splinter and Professor Perry were enjoying a revitalizing pot of tea, each keeping a nervous eye on the closed door of the cupboard, when it happened. The first knock. They both failed to realize its significance at first, mistaking it for a passing tube train in one of the nearby tunnels, but the second knock made them realize. The third confirmed it beyond any doubt.

Something very strong was knocking on the inside of the door. Again. And again. They looked at each other, daring to hope.

Taking a deep breath, Perry prepared to open the door...

* * *

April and the girl crouched down in a side alley till they were certain there was no longer any Foot ninja pursuing them. "Looks like that's it..." April said, smiling and squeezing the girl's hand. "We'll double round just once more to make sure we're not being followed, then it's back to my apartment..." She thought for a moment. "You can get cleaned up. I got a bunch of clothes that don't fit me for some reason, but they're about your size..."

"Thanks..." the girl said. "But I gotta go." She stood up.

"Huh?"

"I appreciate the offer, but now I'm outta there I really gotta get going."

"Uh... OK..." April stood up too as the girl moved off. "Uh... _Be careful out there..._ " she stage-whispered, not really sure what else to say.

The girl stopped and turned back. "Oh, I nearly forgot. _He's OK_. He will be back... You shouldn't worry..." With that, she did leave, disappearing into the shadows.

April stood there for quite a while, such was her bewilderment. She pondered the girl's last words... Whatever they meant, it certainly sounded like good news...

* * *

The four of them were shrouded at first in the vapor that preceded them through the door, and it took a few moments before Splinter and the Professor could see the Turtles clearly. When they could, they both reacted in much the same way. Gaping in confusion.

The Turtles were somewhat confused as well, naturally enough, but even so the welcome was a lot more muted than they would have liked. They looked around each other to compare notes... and gaped in confusion.

They were different...

Not massively different, to be sure, but the mutagen had certainly had some effect. All four of them were just a little bit larger, and just a little bit... greener. There was something different around the eyes, and their lighter skin seemed to have developed patterns of spots.

Running fingers over one of his spotted areas, Michelangelo grinned, apparently taking all this in his stride. "Huh... Spot the difference...!"

* * *

Police Chief Sterns never liked talking to the press at the best of times, but he liked it even less when they descended on him - or, he supposed, _ascended_ \- on the steps of City Hall. " _Please..._ " he said, trying to cut through the babble of questions, "This is really a very minor incident... It has been talked up far beyond its actual importance... In the end, only less than a dozen prisoners absconded, and none of them were high security cases..." This didn't satisfy them at all, and they followed him as he backed his way up the steps.

" _Chief..._ " began a familiar voice and, sighing, Sterns turned to face the latest question. The other reporters actually quietened down to let this one speak, as if they thought at the same time _This is gonna be good_.

"Chief..." April said again now she could be heard. "Do you have any comment to make on the apparent resurgence - _re-resurgence_ , if that's a word - of the Foot Clan? Just what do we have to do to get rid of this menace...?" She thought for a moment. "Oh, and when will a full list of escaped prisoners' names be available?" she added with a humorous glint in her eye, holding the mic out for his reply.

Sterns looked back at her guardedly. _What a nerve... Robyn..._ "I have no further comment to make" he said, and turned away to climb the remaining steps.

April turned to where Irma was standing, down a few steps behind her. _That was fun_ , her smile said as clearly as words.

* * *

Karai stood again on the gantry above the main floor of the warehouse. The Foot ninja had once again assembled. She let her gaze pass over them, paying particular attention to both their new recruits and to the dozen or so veterans now returned to their ranks after being rescued from their incarceration. All were fully kitted out once again, and soon they would be ready.

For war.

* * *

The Shredder stood isolated in a pool of light, and tried to break free as the airman approached calmly. As ever, his effort was futile.

"Calm down, old son..." the airman soothed. "Not your time yet, I'm afraid..."

"You will release me..." the Shredder whispered menacingly.

"Yes... I'm rather afraid we probably will."

* * *

April had joined the others in the subway den, and was gradually starting to get used to their new appearance. It wasn't _so_ different, after all... After fixing herself a cup of coffee, she went over to join them again, about to say something bantery, only to find all of them looking at her a little funny.

"You guys OK?" she asked.

"Yeah..." said Leonardo. "April... Are you OK?"

"Yeah" she said immediately, frowning. "Why'd you ask?"

"It's just..." Donatello put in, "You look a little funny."

"Oh, thanks, Don..." she laughed. "Thanks a lot."

"It's nothing important. Never mind..." The Turtles all looked at each other, each sharing the same uneasy feeling that they couldn't quite figure out.

"I could say the same about you guys, frankly, but I'm _far_ too polite..." she said. The Turtles looked around each other again, and had to concede the point.

Leonardo beckoned her. "Come on. You know you want to..."

Suppressing a giggle, April moved closer and ran her fingers gingerly over the hide on his outstretched arm. "It feels different..." she said. "It's tougher, uh, drier... Kinda leathery..."

"Do me!" said Michelangelo.

"Mikey!" Raphael warned.

"Do you guys feel any different?"

"Not really" Donatello said, looking up. He had gone over to join Perry at his work bench, and they were taking turns to look through the microscope.

"So, are we done mutating...?" asked Raphael. "Or is all this gonna happen again...?" All eyes turned to the Professor.

"Well..." Perry began. "In all likelihood, on balance, taking a number of factors into consideration and balancing them against a lot of criteria we simply cannot make informed judgments about..." Aware of a certain amount of zoning out taking place around him, he hurriedly concluded. "No idea."

"OK, Prof. Thanks" said Leonardo.

"And if you want a second opinion..." put in Donatello, " I don't have any idea either."

"Maybe next time..." mused Michelangelo, and everyone turned to him. "...We'll get wings..."

" _We_ didn't..." said Raphael, "But somewhere right now, I think an angel really is getting his wings..."

"Wrong movie, Raph..." said Donatello.

Leaving the Turtles to their repartee, April approached a distracted Professor Perry. "Penny for 'em, Prof."

"Eh...? What's that...?" He turned. " _Ah_ , Miss O'Neil, I wanted to say, I'm sorry it took so long for you to track me down." He smiled. "I'm not the easiest man to find these days..."

"That's OK, Professor... It all ended up OK." As he turned away, she added "Actually, I wanted to talk to you..."

"Well, if you could keep it reasonably brief, I do have to rush..."

"Yeah. Back to the lab."

"Yes."

"The TGRI facility."

"One of them" he replied vaguely.

"I'm sorry I broke in. But, you know, it was pretty important."

"Oh, it's perfectly all right. That facility is of relatively little importance for now anyway. Our real work is elsewhere."

"Oh... And that would be what...?"

"Really, you know perfectly well I'm not at liberty to discuss such matters..."

"No, I get that..." She smiled. "Hey, don't mind me..."

"No, of course not..." he said amiably, once again turning to go. "After all, as you once said, you _are_ paid to be suspicious." He walked away to make his goodbyes to the others, leaving April lost in thought. It wasn't till he left that she realized - She had indeed said that about being paid to be suspicious. _But not to him._

She looked again at the Professor's retreating back, and watched as he climbed the ladder to the tunnel above. No doubt they'd see him again, but why did she find herself uneasy at the prospect?

Oh, never mind that for now. She was tired, and no wonder. April ran her hands through her hair, trying to tidy it. After her stay in the cells, and everything else she had been through, she badly needed a shower and a few hours sleep. _Hmmm_... Maybe time for a haircut...

 _Hey..._ Once the next thought had occurred to her, it was a game changer... _And start thinking "vacation"..._

* * *

 **Note:** That's it for this first tale, but you'll have noticed that quite a lot of things are set up for later. Who or what is disrupting the fabric of reality? What is Professor Perry hiding in that TGRI facility? Who is _the Girl_? Will the Turtles work well with heroes from other franchises, or will their egos get in the way? Just what has happened to Casey Jones?

The Turtles, April and Splinter are contractually obliged to go and appear in _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III_ , but after that they'll start looking into it.

* * *

**Next: Wise Guys  
**


	6. Wise Guys

**Note:** Set between movies II and III. This follows a few threads left hanging from my earlier story _Day of the Rat_ , and actually begins during it.

* * *

 

_The Foot Clan had been away for a while, looked like for good... Then, just before the weekend of the rat invasion - and boy, we all know where we were that weekend... Unless, like a lot of people, you can't remember it so good... _

_Uh... Yeah... Strange... Go figure..._

_Where was I... Oh yeah... So the word went out, among those of us who needed to know, and a few others beside... The Foot were back. That was too bad, but for New York's organized crime scene this sort of ebb and flow was fairly standard stuff. Always best to take the knocks, go with the flow... I certainly do..._

_What did send out a few shock waves was when a select invitation went out to a few key members of the, uh, how you say, criminal fraternity - *Heh* - Guilty as charged. Although, I should point out right away, this ain't admissible in court, and if it was, I ain't the one telling 'ya' all this..._

_Come and talk, it said. Now, the Foot Clan were a lot of things, but one thing they hadn't ever been up to now was talkers... Curiosity's a powerful thing...  
_

_That junkyard of theirs was guarded like some hidden fortress from the olden days... Nobody was getting into that place - Or, if they did, getting out wasn't gonna be so simple..._

_Lucky - or maybe lucky ain't so much the right word - we had a free pass... So, in we went. Invited guests.  
_

* * *

Watched ominously by Tatsu, leader of the Foot Clan in New York, the visitors to the junkyard were mostly young and scruffily-dressed, though a couple were quite the opposite - Representatives of the city's crime Families, who had in the past learned to fear the Foot Clan. Now, though they knew the Foot were not at the top of their game any more, they were still wary when it came to entering the lion's den.

A workshop at the back of the yard was the venue for their meeting, and with his limited English Tatsu made use of one of his protégés as a mouthpiece - The guy was young, slick and, a lot of the guests found, kinda rubbed 'em the wrong way. They'd rather have heard what Tatsu had to say directly, however basic the vocabulary, so that was going against them for starters.

"Thank you for coming..." Freddy began, wide blue eyes cold and calculating. "Master Tatsu welcomes you, and appreciates that you have taken time to hear his proposals..."

"I ain't hearing no proposals so far, Michael Dudikoff..." said one of the criminals, a confident and very well-dressed gum-chewer in his thirties. "What's say we cut to the chase, huh...?"

"Of course..." Tatsu's representative cast a quick glance at his master, whose fixed scowl gave little away, and continued - "The Foot Clan is prepared to grant a limited autonomy to certain of our territories here in New York, and believes this offers a chance for us all to work together... So long as our rights are respected, the Foot is happy to take a more supervisory role than before, while direct running of these territories is a great opportunity for many of you"-

-"Hey..." Wiseguy interrupted, walking slowly around them, to Tatsu's obvious annoyance, "It's not that I don't appreciate the offer, and it's not like we don't have a few things in common - Hey, I really dig yous guys' taste in decor, know what I'm sayin'...?"

He gestured toward the other side of the workshop, where a dark-haired young woman black leather jacket and pants sat watching them warily - _A_ _hottie_ , most of them had decided when they entered the workshop. Clearly, though, she wasn't there by choice - She was held to her chair by lots of rope and gagged with a strip of tape.

No explanation was forthcoming from the Foot spokesman, and Wiseguy looked back at him and raised his eyebrows. _Their business_ , he supposed, but he couldn't help but wonder what else the Foot had on their slate today.

"But I really am struggling to see why you guys are being so nice about this..." he went on - " _'Less_ , the rumors we all been hearing are true... 'Bout you maybe not being as strong as you were. In fact, I heard you guys were totally washed up..." He winked at the Foot's prisoner before moving back toward Tatsu, and she turned her head away from him in disdain - _Looks kinda familiar_ , he mused, and then it hit him - _Oh yeah... that TV reporter..._

"Sorry, and all..." he said - "but I gotta pass... No hard feelings, it's just you guys are still a little _too much..._ " He gestured again towards the young woman - _April O'Neil_ , that was it - "I mean, I know we can't exactly take the moral high ground here, but we're businessmen - You guys let it all get too personal, maybe a little _cruel_..."

"Mmm _mfff_...!" April emphatically agreed, and Tatsu's scowl turned toward her menacingly - A Foot ninja standing by gripped her shoulder in warning, and she shot an angry look up at him.

"That's very unfortunate..." said Freddy quietly.

"Yeah, feeling's mutual, guy, but _uh_ , never say never again, huh...?"

Turning back to April, Wiseguy looked a little regretful - "Hey, uh... Sorry, sweetheart, hope it all works out for you..." he said, lifting his hat. "There ain't much _I_ can do, so _ciao_ for now..." April glared contemptuously at him and tugged against the ropes - She hadn't expected any help from these guys, but somehow this one's apparent amusement at her predicament made it all seem even worse.

He nodded toward the door, and the others hesitated - Having refused his offer, would Tatsu just let them leave...?

It looked like he was wondering that too, but after a long moment Tatsu shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. Wiseguy led the way out into the yard and toward the gate, smirking the whole time.

* * *

Mostly, the visitors couldn't get out of there fast enough but Wiseguy, taking his time, stopped halfway between the workshop and the main gate to take out a small ornate pocket-watch and flip it open. Apparently a little surprised at the time, he started to tuck it away again, and as he did so managed to scatter a lot of loose change on the ground.

"Oh _my_..." he said casually, and leaned over to start picking it all up with painful slowness. Freddy, watching from the doorway of the workshop, was both a little amused and also intrigued. What game was this guy playing...? Tatsu came out to stand next to him, and glared at their guest suspiciously. He abruptly gestured for Freddy to do something.

One of the other Foot ninja had apparently already taken charge of the situation, and was already helping to pick up the discarded coins and other bits and pieces. "Thanks..." Wiseguy said quietly without looking at him.

"No problem..." said Matt, voice slightly muffled by his mask.

"Good to see 'ya'."

"How'd 'ya' know it was me...?"

"Kidding, right...? Y'move like a panther, Matty boy..."

"Just say whatever you gotta say, and make it quick... They'll get suspicious..."

"Just that, you know, it's not too late... I dunno why you joined this circus, but there's still a place for you among your own..."

"Oh yeah...?"

"Things change, Matty... Things change..." He put one of the coins in Matt's hand as he picked up the last of the others. "For your trouble..." he said, amused. "You know how to find me."

As Wiseguy departed with a wave for a scowling Tatsu and half-smiling Freddy, Matt stood back and tried to attract as little attention to himself as possible. When he had a chance, he took a look at the coin. About the same size as a quarter.

Which was just what it wasn't.

* * *

**About 18 hours later**

Matt threw his weapon to the ground, and nudged Jake to do the same. They raised their hands. One of the Turtles, the one with the red bandana, came up close to them and peered suspiciously in their faces.

Both of them went pale as the creature raised one of its _sai_ s and prodded Matt's chest with it - Was this it...? Was this thing going to kill them...?

"What about these reprobates...?" The idea of these mutant Turtles had been part of their lives for a while now, but Matt had never seen one quite so up close, and hearing it speak was still pretty unreal.

 _"Leave them, Raph...!"_ April hurried over urgently, trailing ropes, one of the other Turtles having only just cut her free from the support pillar Freddy had her tied to. Matt glanced at the unconscious Freddy on the floor, oblivious, and faintly smiled at the thought of how much this would upset him...

For Matt, familiarity with Freddy had bred contempt, and he knew that, even with all his plans in ruins, not being able to take his petty revenge on the Turtles' friend would be the thing that bothered Freddy the most. If he had had his way, she would have been presented to the merciless new Foot leader coming in right now from Tokyo... Jake couldn't have handled that, and Matt didn't really think _he_ could have either. They had done the right thing.

_Yeah, keep telling yourself that... Keep telling yourself... While these Turtles skewer you like a kabob, and she laughs as they do it... Probably just wants a good view before they start... Wouldn't blame her..._

April used her hands, still bound in front of her, to gently move the sai a little to one side, and Matt was taken aback. Weirdly disappointed, in fact... Now he had to think what to do next... _"April...?!"_ the red-masked Turtle exclaimed.

"Look, trust me, OK..." - As she spoke, one of the other Turtles, the blue-masked one, finished freeing her - "I know these two aren't angels, but I think they deserve a chance." Jake and Matt exchanged nervous glances. What was going to happen here...?

The creature turned back to them with a frankly terrifying expression. "Why... I oughta..." It looked back at April for a second, then its menacing gaze returned to them. "Sharpen up, guys..." he said in a quiet voice that was New York to its core. " _That_ is your cue to leave, while you can!"

 _Really...?_ Matt and Jake moved away before the creature could change its mind. Get outta here, and be thankful...

"Hey, Jake..." called April. "You _are_ kinda cute, for what it's worth..." She shrugged. "Just _sayin'._ "

Matt rolled his eyes. He grabbed Jake by the shoulders and helped him on his way to the back door of the workshop, aware of the goofy smile on his friend's face. _"Don't look back, Jake... Don't look back..."_ he muttered. _"Leaving..."_

Pushing Jake bodily through the door, he turned back for a second and momentarily made eye contact with April. _OK, Jake, I get it... She is pretty cool..._ He winked nonchalantly, and followed Jake, unable to believe their luck had held. They were free. More or less...

 _"What...?"_ he heard April ask defensively back in the workshop before they got out of earshot, and smiled faintly - _Yeah, we did the right thing._ "What now...?" asked Jake, and Matt sighed... It looked like he had very few options.

* * *

_So, I hear what you're saying, what's this all got to do with me...? Your enigmatic, slightly world-weary yet ever so insightful author without name... Well, dear reader, I was the handsome, debonair visitor to the Foot Clan's yard that fateful evening..._

_No, it was so... Hear me out. That was how it all started. And if I'd known where it would lead, maybe I wouldn't have been so eager to stick my neck out like that..._

_My problem is, I'm basically too good-hearted. For a criminal, that is a major issue, as I'm sure you can imagine. Somehow, though, it's one I've almost always been able to overcome..._

* * *

Wiseguy caught the fast-moving object with lightning-fast reflexes as it arced across the smoky room toward him, and several hands twitched in close proximity to the triggers of their concealed weapons. He looked down at the object.

The coin. He looked up at the one who had thrown it.

"Matty..." he mused. "Matty, Matty Matty... Matty."

"That's me."

"Who's your little pal...?"

"That's Jake... He's OK."

"Glad to hear that, Matty... Wouldn't have wanted to think he was comin' down with the sniffles or somethin'. What brings you here...?"

"You know what brings me here... _You_ brought me here."

"Yeah, OK... I brought _you_... I didn't say bring a friend... It is just the one, I take it... You don't have a gang 'a' them outside...?"

"He's got nowhere else to go."

"That's my problem...?"

"Who said it was a problem? Jake'll be as much an asset as I'll be."

"He's not Italian."

"He's not Italian. So what...? You got loads'a guys here who ain't Italian."

"So, you're all, uh, keen to join us now, Matty Boy...? Last time, I don't remember you being so eager... It was Foot Clan, Foot Clan, Foot Clan... I think you'd been watching too many martial arts movies and not nearly enough Scorcese..."

"I'm not gonna beg. You offered, and here I am. Not just me but someone else with the same skills... I brought you two good soldiers when all you looked for was one... Now, that's good business."

"Let me be the judge of that, Matteo."

* * *

It was about an hour later that Wiseguy managed to finish up business in the front room, skillfully leaving Matt and Jake still unsure of where they stood - Even though he never for a moment had any intention of not granting them refuge. He returned to his private office at the back, and slumped into the chair behind his desk. Leaning over, he pulled back one of the slats of his blind and peered out through the rain-smeared window at the breakers yard outside.

His domain. His empire. The start of it, at least.

"Well...?" The female voice was cultured and precise, with the faintest hint only of an accent.

"Very well, thanks. At least... I think my voice is sounding a little hoarse today... What d'ya think...? It's the damp."

"Do they suspect?"

"Course they suspect I'm up to somethin'. This is a suspect line of business we're all in, know what I'm sayin'?" He rubbed his eyes. "Do they think I've got you back here...? 'Course they don't."

"Good..." Karai sat back in her chair, but the movement was deceptive - She did not relax. Ever. "So long as they don't."

"You feel like telling me why you want these two kept in the dark...? Instead of, y'know, actually keeping them in the dark somewhere...? I heard stories of what you guys do with your deserters, and they weren't pretty."

"These are not... ordinary deserters."

"Intelligence assets, huh...? I see what you're sayin'. I'll go along with that, so long as you keep your side."

"Very well." Karai rose to go.

"Wait a moment... I'd hate to see old Matty Boy harmed, you know... I mean, it's not a deal-breaker, but it'd be nice to avoid if at all possible."

"Do not worry... I have, as you say... Bigger fish to fry."

Wiseguy smiled. "I'm sure you do... Well, _uh_ , mind how you go."

"Till our next meeting... Don Turtelli." There may possibly have been the faintest hint of a smile on the young woman's normally impassive face as she moved past him to the other door, one that matched the one forming on his own.

* * *

_Yeah, I know... I know... What could possibly go wrong...?_

* * *

As soon as Karai had left, the smile left his face abruptly. He reached over to his desk drawer, and pondered the small object lying inside. Carefully, he took out the crumpled, faded remnant of a piece of paper, folded over several times to fit into a small pocket, and, not for the first time, read it carefully.

The last thing he had expected to find.

The other night, he and a couple of his most trusted guys had gotten into the Foot Clan's abandoned junkyard, just to see if anything useful had been left behind after their third - and he had hoped at the time, _final_ \- defeat. They had found the detritus of a full-scale battle between the hordes of marauding rats and an army of weird mechanical pest-controlling devices... They had searched the yard, and then checked the workshop.

There they had found much what he had expected - the old furniture, the spare clothes, the weapons the Foot had left behind. He found the rickety old chair April had been tied to, half-hidden under the discarded ropes, and something made him look among the scattered items on a nearby table... A couple of coins... a credit card - That was now making its way through the postal system back to April with his anonymous compliments... And one more thing which, given where he had found it, must have been, like the card, confiscated from the Foot's prisoner...

He read the faded writing on the document - Some of it typed, some hand-written. One Honda motorcycle held in pawn in return for payment... Owner one _Arnold..._ The rest of the name was difficult to make out, but he was pretty sure he knew what it said. Could be a coincidence, of course, but in his experience those were few and far between. So...

He leaned as far back in his chair as he safely could, and considered carefully. His uneasy new ally knew nothing about this pawn receipt, and there had to be a way he could use this to his advantage...

"You've been keeping unusual company of late, haven't you...? _Casey Jones_."

 

* * *

 **Next:** **What Casey Did Next**


	7. What Casey Did Next

**Note:** This is set around the same time as _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze._ Have you ever wondered why Casey Jones wasn't in that movie? Not really? Well, let's find out anyway... **  
**

* * *

**What Casey Did Next** **  
**

_...Masterless_ _t_ _he Ronin may be, but duty to his host, however temporary, is paramount. Even at the cost of his life..._ \- Saying attributed to Miyamoto Musashi - *

* * *

"Where is it..?!"

Agent Green was new to the department. He also wasn't really called Green, but that came with the territory. Change of name, change of pace, change of everything.

"Where is it..?!" The voice was just that little bit more insistent.

Agent Brown had been with the department a long time. So he conducted the interrogation while Agent Green watched. The woman didn't look very tough, in fact she looked perfectly ordinary, apart maybe from her bright green eyes, but her ability to stand up to Agent Brown was highly unusual.

"Where is it..?!"

Agent Green didn't even know what this was all about. That was how classified it was. He knew one thing, however. This wouldn't last much longer. He didn't really know how he felt about that. He supposed he would find out soon. Certainly, his psych evaluation said he was ready, or he wouldn't be here.

"We will find them." Agent Brown's voice was ice-cold. The woman looked back at him steadily.

"Be careful what you wish for" she said.

"Leave the room" Agent Brown said. Agent Green realized with a start that he meant him. He hurriedly obeyed.

Outside in the corridor, he closed the door behind him. The room was heavily sound-proofed, but even through the thick walls and reinforced door he heard the single gunshot.

* * *

Casey Jones was far from home, wherever home was these days. He was a Brooklyn boy, but _that_ no longer felt like home. Lately, he had been spending a lot of time in Manhattan, of all places, but you know what; that didn't feel much like home either. The place that had come closest of late was a run down old dump out in the middle of nowhere - It wasn't the place that counted so much. It was the people.

The people, and the talking animals... Yeah, life had taken a strange turn.

He straightened up unsteadily on his bar stool and squinted at the name of the place where it was written in conveniently big letters on the wall. _Goat Head Bar_. OK. Right now, this was home, and that fact gave him a warm fuzzy glow inside. Admittedly that could just as easily be the beer, but so what?

He looked over at the man sitting next to him. "So where was I?"

The man was about forty-five or fifty and had a face that looked like it was carved from granite, but the overall effect was kind and trustworthy. Faded check shirt and jeans, couple of days' stubble. He nursed a bottle of beer that clearly wasn't his first of the evening, and turned to face Casey with eyes that didn't really focus too well. He paused a long time, to give the question all the thought it needed.

"The garbage truck" he said at last. "You'd just crushed Darth Vader in the back of a garbage truck."

"No, man, it wasn't actually Darth Vader..." Casey berated him. "I just said the guy kinda reminded me of Darth. OK..? You with me..?"

The man gave him permission to continue with a slight wave of his hand.

"OK... Uh... The guys moved out of their old place, you know, they kinda had to, 'cause all the bad guys weren't exactly accounted for. The boss man was gone, definitely gone, I mean, no way anybody was surviving that, right..? But they still had lots of enemies, and some of them knew where they lived. Bummer, right..? So they shacked up with April while they looked for a new pad. She'd just got this new place, thanks to some serious hardballing with her boss... You remember, her old place got burnt down...

Man, stay awake..! Stay with me, man... We're gonna get through this..."

* * *

It was the day after April's birthday. She got home from what had been a fairly trying day at Channel 3 to find - to her relief, much as she loved them - most of her temporary lodgers absent, with only Raphael slumped on the couch watching TV. "They're getting the rest of our stuff" he had offered in explanation, and Master Splinter was above in the box room asleep.

Then there was Casey, who had shown up not long after. With her present. A frank exchange of views soon developed.

"You guys..." Raphael called, interrupting the flow of their _conversation_. "I can't hear the commentary."

Distracted, Casey pushed hair back from his face. "Uh, do you mind, Raph...? We're trying to have an argument here..."

"Uh, no. Go right ahead."

"Seriously, though..." April continued, pale grey eyes flashing dangerously. "I mean, I don't wanna seem ungrateful... But... What the heck... For my _birthday_ , a bat...? We agreed, _yeah_ , it's early days, we don't even have to do the gift thing... But... A bat...?"

"A bat...?" piped up Raphael, head snapping round. "Cool..! What do you feed it..? Could I look after it when you're on vacation..?" As Casey and April looked at him steadily, his head started to retreat involuntarily into his shell. "Sorry... _Yikes_."

April smiled at him, calming down. "Not that kinda bat, Raph..." She went behind the breakfast bar, pulled out the offending object and hefted it. "A cricket bat." Noticing something, she fingered the edge with a frown, noting the little notches. "A _used_ cricket bat... _Nice_ , Casey. You know, sometimes, you're just a little _too_ slick, you know what I mean...?"

"Hey..." Casey held out his hand with index finger raised. "I guarantee that bat has never once been used..." He paused for a moment, visibly thinking. "To play cricket..." he backtracked.

As April shook her head at him and then moved over to the spiral stairs, bat in hand, he shrugged expansively. "Hey..!" He looked round as if to appeal to Raphael for support. "C'mon..!"

 _"I'm not here"_ said Raph.

April stopped halfway up, and leaned on the balustrade. "Hey, I suppose I'm lucky you took the trouble to wipe the muggers' brains off it before giving it to me, huh..?" She seemed about to add something and thought better of it. Continuing up the stairs to the mezzanine level above, she vanished from view. _"Good night!"_

 _"Good night, April!"_ Raphael called.

Casey stood there in silence for several seconds. Looking round. Looking up. Looking to the door, then to the window. Over at Raph. All the time seeming to be about to say something. "You wanna patrol the neighborhood?" he called over. "Then maybe grab a jar..."

Raphael took a few seconds to consider. "Sure..." he replied. Jumping to his feet, he grabbed his long coat and hat and joined Casey en route to the window opening onto the fire escape. "Hey... Was that _your_ cricket bat you gave April..?"

"Yeah."

"That's your favorite."

"Yeah..." Casey said quietly. "You know what, I'm glad _somebody_ gets it..."

* * *

Casey shook his new friend awake when he started slumping onto the bar. "Hey, wake up. You'll get us thrown out. Uh, where was I..?"

The man straightened his back with an audible crack, and searched for the non-existent watch he seemed to expect to see on his wrist. "What time is it..?"

"Say, will you quit interrupting..?" said Casey. "I'm getting to a good bit... Y'know, the bit where I'm all sensitive and stuff..."

* * *

April and Casey sat on the roof of the apartment building at night, side by side on foldout chairs. "So what was it you wanted to say..?" asked Casey.

"I think that might be my line." April pushed a lock of brown, slightly curly hair behind her ear and looked at him levelly, dark eyes wide... Yeah, dark... He couldn't help it, it bothered him... Didn't they used to be...?

 _Oh yeah_ , she was expecting him to respond... "Well, yeah, maybe... I guess, it works for either of us, right..? I mean, it's all..." He shrugged, and looked out over the sea of lights.

"All what..?"

"I mean, we don't do _this_ enough... It's like one of us has to make an appointment." That sounded right, didn't it...? It was even true. He had avoided mentioning the _other_ thing. His unease, the sudden weirdness... The _difference_ , that nobody but him seemed to be able to see...

"Yeah, I suppose... OK, I think I see where this is heading..." April breathed. "We know who the _busy_ one is here..."

"I was thinkin'a heading off" Casey said abruptly - April looked at him again, curious, almost offended that he had said something she hadn't seen coming.

"Where?"

"Just around..." He shrugged again. "Time to think, y'know..? Travel round, see some different sights for a while..."

"Break some different bad guy heads..?" There was a hint of a smile as she said that.

"Y'know me real well." He stood up and wandered over toward the edge of the roof slowly, before turning back to face her. "Maybe... Maybe this is all we got."

"What do you mean..?"

"I mean, uh... At first, we were pretty tight, yeah..? I mean, once we got over you not liking me and stuff..."

"Is that what you?"-

-"And then we had some great times... Still do... We get on great, don't we...? But..."

"...I get you. Maybe we're..."

"Friends. Yeah."

"Just friends." April pondered. They both considered that, neither of them wanting to be the one to confirm it one way or the other. Casey turned round to look out at the city.

"Casey..."

"Yeah...?"

"Thanks for the cricket bat."

"You never know when that kind of thing'll come in handy."

"I know."

"I mean, this is a dangerous city sometimes, even at the best'a' times... But we got other stuff goin' on, so for us, all bets are kinda off..."

"Casey. I get it. I _do_ actually get it now. Thank you."

He thought about that for a moment, face gradually relaxing into a smile. "Hey, uh... You know... You're welcome." He seemed to reach a decision, and moved back over to her and sat down on the chair again, searching the pockets of his jeans and jacket. "Uh... Yeah, here it is..."

Producing a faded piece of paper, crumpled and curled at the edges, he handed it to her. April looked at it, nonplussed, peering at the faded writing. "Uh, Casey... You, uh, shouldn't have... What is it...?"

"I'm coming back. I mean, you know that anyway, right? I'm definitely coming back. But this kinda shows you I _really_ mean it. You know I got that bike, yeah...?"

"Uh, yeah... Honda, right...?"

"Well, I pawned it months ago... Every time I get the green together I got just enough to stop Lou selling it..."

"Oooohhh... Kaaayyy..."

"So you can keep _this_ for me till I get back."

April smiled faintly. "OK."

"Just, uh, don't lose it, alright...?" He stood up again.

"You got it." She stood up and they hugged briefly. "Be safe."

"Likewise." He started walking away, and turned back again. "Hey, uh, I'm sorry I"-

-"I'm sorry I said you needed to grow up" she interrupted.

"Hey, uh..." he smiled sheepishly.

"Although..." she said, eyes narrowed, folding her arms against the sudden chill breeze. "Maybe it _would_ help."

"Yeah..." He waved and jumped onto the fire escape, and was away.

April stood there a few minutes longer, then seemed to notice the ticket in her hand for the first time. She looked at it thoughtfully, then shook her head as if to dismiss the idea forming in her mind.

* * *

"So your girlfriend is actually a different person now from when you met...? Did I understand that right...? Or did you mean she's changed so much she's _like_ a different person...?"

"Man, did I really tell you that...? You know, that's like, the ultimate _no go_. I haven't even started figuring that out yet..."

"It's always about a girl..." the guy said, with a wistful look, as he and Casey crossed the parking lot of the _Goat Head_.

"Yeah, I suppose..." Casey knew something was wrong as he approached his old beaten-up car. Even under the poor quality artificial light, he could tell it looked a lot more beaten-up than usual. As he got closer, he could see one door ripped open. Practically hanging off, in fact.

"No...!" he called, running toward it. "No!" he added. "No..." he said quietly, resigned to the truth.

"Sorry..." his new friend said. "What'd they take...?"

Casey had a look inside. "Well, I ain't got much to start with, really, but what I did have was kinda important to me... Yeah, they took my, uh, stuff..."

"Stuff?"

What the hell. "My, uh, weapons. I had a bag of weapons." The guy raised an eyebrow at that, but that was the full extent of his reaction.

"Weapons, huh...?"

"Yeah. Well, sports stuff. No guns. I don't do guns. Don't worry, I'm not weird or anything... Well, I suppose I am, but no more than most people, you know...?"

"I'm not judging."

"Well, it's gonna be a drafty night."

"You're sleeping in there?"

"I wasn't planning on driving anywhere, after all those beers..."

"Got a couch you could use..." the guy said. "I'm in the trailer park, ten minutes walk..."

Casey considered. "...OK..." he said at last. "Thanks." He closed the door, ignoring the grinding sound it made, and secured it as best he could, so that it at least looked from a distance like it was closed. Then he followed the guy up the road.

"I'm Casey" he said. "Sorry, I never caught your handle."

"Gabe."

"Your wife be OK with me crashing...?"

"No wife. Not any more. Just me and my gal."

"Daughter?"

"Yeah."

Had Casey retained sharper wits, he might have been a little suspicious that Gabe had gone from being very drunk to completely sober pretty fast. But _then_ he wouldn't really have been _him_.

* * *

Casey would have stretched out on the couch if he could, but as a relatively tall guy it was far too short for that. He made do with stretching out his upper body and curling his legs up. _They_ could take a turn being straight out later. That seemed fair.

No. No good. There was still something making him uncomfortable. Irritably, he reached under the cushions and his hand encountered something solid. Wooden. He pulled out the baseball bat, and grinned. "Old school" he said contentedly. "Nice."

He held out the bat to assess its quality and was startled to find someone standing there in the cramped main room of the trailer looking at him. A girl, a teen, with dyed black hair and strikingly green eyes.

"Hi" Casey said, frozen in place.

"Hi" the girl said after a long pause. There followed an even longer pause.

"Your dad let me sleep here" Casey said.

"I know. I heard you talking."

"OK."

"Gabe's my stepdad. I'm telling you that 'cause it's a fact, I don't resent him or anything. He's really cool."

"...OK."

"Your name's Casey." It was a statement, not a question.

"It's what I'm called. I don't like my name, so I don't use it."

There was the faintest hint of a smile. "Me neither..."

"What do they-?" Casey stopped short as a shadow moved across the curtained window and running feet could be heard outside. Stealthy, but unmistakable. He was on his feet in an instant. Fortunately, he was still fully-clothed.

"OK" he said, "My instinct says we're in trouble, and I got good instinct... You guys expecting any visitors..?" He hefted the baseball bat and stood between the girl and the door.

"Not expecting..." the girl replied.

"OK..." Casey grinned. "Don't worry, you guys are lucky you got me... You got a crisis, I'm your guy... Quick, before this all goes down... What do I call you...?"-

* * *

-" _Shadow_ " the voice said down the phone line. -" _Operation Shadow is go.._."

* * *

**Next: The Hunters Remain the Hunters**

* * *

* This attribution is unlikely. It is now thought more likely to originate, no doubt for his own reasons, from the shamed _daimyō_ Norinaga c.1590CE.


	8. The Hunters Remain the Hunters

**(What Casey Did Next, part 2)**

* * *

**The Turtles' lair, New York - 1990something...**

"Hey! April showers bring May flowers! How're you doing...?"

April looked askance at Casey for a moment. _Casey_. Not Whit. Whit was back in Japan, several centuries ago. Dead by now - Long dead. She tried not to think about that... _Hey...! Casey's here!_

"I get back from a very poor excuse for a vacation, and that's all you can say?" she quipped, trying her best to keep it light. The two of them leaned next to each other on Donatello's work bench so they could talk quietly.

"Hey, it's a poem!" he said mock-defensively.

"I thought it was a weather report... Anyway, I like you better without the beard."

"Beard?" Casey was confused.

"It's a long story."

"Well, I got time" he said. "I'm not going anywhere." Pointing at her, he added in a rush "Oh, yeah, and the shorter hair... It's..."

"Thanks" she replied casually. "So was yours." They were distracted as, for some reason which might remain forever mysterious, Master Splinter put a lampshade on his head. It was meant for Michelangelo's amusement, but it turned out they all found it pretty funny.

Eventually, Casey recovered enough to continue their conversation. "So, anyway, looks like the guys are doing some kinda dance routine now. Which is... a little weird, but that's OK... This, uh, vacation. Tell me more."

"I feel like I kinda got to see a new side to you" said April enigmatically, and Casey frowned. He looked like he was about to demand more info, then shrugged instead.

"OK."

"So, I've told you _a little_ about my vacation... And believe me, you _will_ get to hear all about it one of these days... When you least expect it. But what about _your_ vacation...?"

"My, uh, vacation, huh?"

"Yeah. I, uh, didn't expect you to be gone so long... Casey, you've been gone eight months. You do realize that, right...?" - Casey nodded, and breathed in and out slowly, as April continued - "I mean, obviously, since you didn't call, I figured you'd been on ice somewhere."

"On ice..." he mused. "Yeah, I suppose you could say it like that."

* * *

**Somewhere else, about 7 months earlier...**

It all went so fast. That was the weird thing about it.

The first of the intruders edged his way into the trailer, seconds after Casey had turned out all the lights. It wasn't his fault the combat training hadn't covered this exact situation. There was no module titled "Resisted armed infiltration of a trailer"... _OK, he was lying on the floor - Why was that? Ooowww... Maybe it had something to do with this lump on his head... He felt dizzy..._

 _"Gabe!" a voice called. Gabe..._ That meant something. Kinda sounded familiar. _"Gabe!"_ called the voice again.

* * *

"Stay there!" Casey stage-whispered to the girl, practically carrying her away from the trailer and into the darkness offered by the trees. Carrying her because she fought him tooth and nail - it was the fiercest fight he'd had in... Oh, at least a minute.

_This is what you get when you try to help people._

Dumping her on the ground, Casey turned back toward the trailer. He stopped. _Dammit!_ It was no use. They really did have the place surrounded now. Far too many of them. He looked down at the girl - She was looking at the trailer as well, and apparently coming to the same conclusions, her rage of a few moments ago pretty much forgotten.

"Hey, I tried, OK..." said Casey quietly. "I got no answer from Gabe..."

"I heard him..." she explained quietly. "He pretended to keep talking to me the whole time, so they'd think I was there... So they'd just go after him..." She put her head in her hands, and when she took them away again she was calm. Totally self-possessed in a way Casey found pretty surprising - Just what kind of stuff had this kid been through already...?

"We gotta get outta here..." said Casey with regret. "I'm comin' back for these guys, make no mistake, I'm comin' back, but right now we gotta get outta here..."

"True." Shadow turned and was walking away before he knew what was happening, and he hurried to catch up. _Hey...!_ Just who was the grownup here...?

"Look..." he said to her as they walked. "I gotta know what's going on here... Who are those guys, and why are they after Gabe...?"

"Who said they were after Gabe...?"

"You saying they're after something else...?"

"Or someone."

"You?"

"One thing about you, Casey Jones, you really are as smart as you look."

"Listen to me, kid... What you don't know has a bad habit of getting you killed, that's my experience. Care to share the big secrets, huh...?"

"You've already seen what's wrong with the world, you just don't want to talk about it."

"Huh...? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Not sure you can handle it yet. Maybe someday."

"Gee... Uh, thanks."

"Did you read a lot as a child...?"

"Has anybody ever told you you're a strange kid?"

"It's relevant. You remember Benny the Elephant...?"

"It's Benjy the Elephant" Casey said automatically, accessing a part of his memory he didn't even know he had.

"Is it?"

"Yeah, it is. Benjy the damn Elephant... But what's that gotta do-?"

-"Will this thing actually get us anywhere?" she asked, looking askance at his wrecked car.

"It'll get us where we need to go" he responded defensively. "Don't you worry, OK..."

"I'm not worried" she said. "The problems we're facing are so huge, there's no point worrying."

"Great..." he said, picking out the last fragments of glass before carefully getting behind the wheel. "You're a real ray of sunshine, uh... Shadow."

* * *

"Sorry about all this. I hope my people weren't too rough, Mister _uh_..."

"Gabe. Just Gabe."

"Mister... Gabe." Agent Brown stepped out of the pool of light his prisoner sat in, and was momentarily lost in the deep shadows. His footsteps could be heard as he walked around, and then he suddenly thrust his face forward, becoming visible again. "We will find out your name, you know. It's just a matter of time."

"I wish you joy of it."

"Just how much do you know, I wonder...? Do you know about the people you're protecting...? Do you know just where they came from...?" Gabe murmured something in response, and Agent Brown, a little hard of hearing and very sensitive about it, leaned forward again. "I don't believe I heard you, sir. Could you speak up a little...?"

 _"He said they're family."_ The voice, that of Agent Green, came from outside the pool of light, and Brown scowled.

"Thank you..." he growled, and walked around the prisoner again. To his chagrin, Gabe was smiling to himself. "What's so amusing... Gabe...?"

"You are... No, don't take offense... You just don't understand, and you never will..."

"I believe it's you who doesn't understand, sir... The dangers these... travelers represent..."

"They never moved an inch..." Gabe said. "Most of 'em are in the same place they've always been. How can they be travelers...?"

 _"Gabe..."_ Green said quietly. _"Tell us about your family."_

"I, uh..." Gabe thought for a moment. "I lost them. Thought I did..."

"You _did_ " Brown said brutally.

"Nothing prepares you..." said Gabe quietly. "Nothing. In the morning, I was a husband and a father. By nightfall, I was neither."

 _"I'm sorry, Gabe..."_ said Green.

"I'm sorry too..." said Brown. "If not for the accident that killed them, you wouldn't have been so vulnerable, such easy pickings for the invaders to prey upon..."

"They're not invaders...!" said Gabe, losing his cool for the first time.

 _"Tell us what happened..."_ suggested Green.

"Uh... A lot of times, I thought I saw one of them - You know, in the street, in the park... Anywhere... I had a therapist for a while, she said that was normal... But then... Then one day, I thought I saw them both... And..."

_"And it was them."_

"It wasn't them" Brown corrected them. "It was something that looked like them."

"There were differences..." said Gabe. "There were certainly differences, but in all important ways, it was them... It took a while before they would trust me, and even then it took a while before I could get my head around what they were telling me, but it was my _wife_ and my _daughter_... They're not aliens, they're people... From a world so like our own that you'd struggle to find the difference..."

"The main difference..." said Brown "Is that their world is gone, and in clinging to ours, they'll make it go the same way."

"Listen..." said Gabe. "The way I understand it is this... There were walls protecting us, walls we couldn't see... Ever since the beginning... Walls that kept everything in its right place, and kept... Kept something else out. Whatever has happened, those walls are suddenly not doing their job, and there's people crossing over who don't even always know they've crossed... You really think you can track down all of them... What are you going to do with them...?"

Brown shot a warning glance in Green's direction, and leaned over Gabe again. "We'll protect our people - That's our people - as best we can, for as long as we can. Now... You said something about... keeping something else out. You didn't mean the beings you think of as your family... So just what did you mean...?"

"I don't know nothing."

Brown stared at him levelly, for a long time. "We'll see" he finally said.

* * *

_"Hi... This is April... I can't come to the phone right now, as I've been kidnapped by a gang of ninja thieves as part of their feud with some friends of mine... I'm currently tied up in a junkyard, the Turtles are in a deep trance having their memories searched by a man possessed by an ancient demon who can control rats, and... oh, yeah, Master Splinter is missing, presumed dead after a run in with said demon... I think that about covers it... Wow, what a day, huh...?"_

That wasn't the message on April's answerphone, although it would accurately have summed up her status at that moment - In fact, there was no answerphone as she hadn't quite got around to connecting one, and so Casey just got no answer. He muttered in frustration, and slammed down the gas station's public payphone.

He was sure April would have been able to help him with Shadow's weird cryptic clue... and maybe just with this whole situation generally. _God_ , he missed her, even if... _Yeah, let's forget about that right now... One problem at a time..._

He turned, realizing that he hadn't seen the girl for several minutes, and he had vowed to himself - and to the absent Gabe, not that he would have heard - to keep her in sight... Where was she...?

"Hi..." she said, from right behind him, and he whirled round - "Whatcha doing...?"

"Uh... Making a phone call..." He didn't like being thrown off balance like that, and he wondered how deliberate it had been. " _Trying_ to make a phone call..."

"Girlfriend...?"

"Well... Yeah... Kind of... I guess... It's complicated, you know..."

"It's OK, you don't need to justify or explain anything to me... I was just curious."

"OK... Look, uh, I think we should keep moving... Maybe get you back to New York, and then I'll go see if I can help Gabe... Maybe, uh, take some friends with me... Those goons are not gonna know what's hit 'em when I get my posse together, know what I'm sayin'?"

"You can't."

"Say what...?"

"Don't look like that... I want to rescue Gabe, of course I do. But it isn't possible. Trust me. Where they've taken him isn't somewhere we can go."

"You, uh, speak for yourself, OK...? I can go anywhere I wanna... And I know we only just met, but Gabe is a friend of mine. That means I got his back, and as soon as I make sure you're safe, the way he'd want, I'm going after him."

She shook her head. "You don't understand..."

"Y'think...? Maybe that's 'cause I ain't getting any explanations, I'm just gettin' some waffledygook about elephants..."

"Gobbledygook."

He pointed a warning finger, trying to look stern and failing. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that."

"Come on..." she said. "We've been here a while now. It's time we moved on. It's possible they recognized you, and if they did, we got problems..."

"Yeah, OK..."

"We'll find a phone next place we stop. You can call April then."

"Yeah..." Casey stopped dead, and stared at her. "Hey, wait..."

Shadow turned to him, inwardly kicking herself, realizing how careless she had been. He hadn't mentioned her name...! He didn't know how important he was...! "What...?" she asked, still hopeful she could get away with it.

Casey grinned. "I nearly forgot to pay for the gas...! Be right back."

* * *

"What's that...?" Agent Green asked, frowning, as Agent Brown carefully unpacked the equipment case handed to him a moment earlier. He produced an unfamiliar device separated into three components and carefully slotted the components together.

"So, there's still something I know that you don't, huh...?" said Brown acidly. "Finally, after being repeatedly kicked up the ass, the tech guys have produced something to make our job a little easier..."

"A long-range detector..." Green concluded.

"That's right. Any n-particles within five miles, it'll tell us... As we get closer, it'll tell us more. With this, we'll find them."

"We'll find someone."

"Someone giving off n-particles. Which by definition is not a waste of our time... Think about it, though... That campsite had residual traces that were off the scale. Something major had gone down there."

"Probably not that girl. We have no evidence she's moved across more than one barrier."

"Then she's with somebody else who has." Brown smiled. "Whoever it is, we'll get both of them."

* * *

**Next: Benny/Benjy  
**

* * *

**Note:** Just a little of the dialogue in the first scene of this chapter has been taken from a short deleted section of the ending of _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III_. It's still there in the novelization.


	9. Benny/Benjy

******(What Casey Did Next, part 3)** ** **

* * *

**New York - 1 week after the (20th century) events of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III...**

Light flooded in as the shutter was pulled up and hitched to the ceiling of the storage unit, and Casey waited a moment for his eyes to adjust before stepping in. "OK..." he said. "What've we got here...?"

"Yeah..." said April, moving forward to join him. "Well, you know I've been kinda waiting for the right time, and it looks like time finally caught up with me..."

"You got my bike outta pawn..." he said slowly. "Thanks."

"You're very welcome."

"And totaled it" he added, lifting up the tarp to glance at the wreckage beneath. "You know, I'm real glad you left this as a surprise..."

" _Yeah_..." said April. "Wait, no...! I actually didn't. When _I_ was riding it, it didn't get so much as a scratch."

"Yeah... What's his name again...? Todd...? I gotta look this guy up." The Turtles had filled him in, a little confusingly maybe, on the adventures they'd had in his absence... The return of the Shredder, the ooze, the pre-fight doughnuts, Turtle Rap, the Rat King, Whiskers, their friends Keno and Todd... but they'd left a couple of details hazy... Like the fate of his Honda motorcycle.

"He's just a kid, Casey... And he did save the city. With your bike! So, in a way, you get a little bit of the credit too...! Listen, I'll, uh... make it up to you, OK...?"

"Actually..." he mused. "We all gotta go sometime, and I kinda like the idea of my bike buying it saving the world... Yeah, it's OK. It really is OK."

"Well, uh, that really is a great attitude, Casey... I'm impressed." April sidled over and nudged him with her whole weight, and he grinned.

"Thanks..." he replied. "Does this mean I'm finally a grownup...?"

"You're not going to let me forget that, are you...? Well, put it this way... Am I _still_ a different person...?" She rested her chin on his shoulder and stared up at him playfully. Laughing, he draped his arm around her, and did his best to forget he had ever felt any uneasiness. So what if she used to be different somehow...? He wasn't sure he could even remember any different anyway, and the more time passed, the more he was almost starting to think he'd imagined it...

"No..." he said. "You're just you... Same as you've always been."

"Better believe it."

* * *

**7 months earlier...**

"N-particles..." said Agent Brown, saying it slowly and letting them take it in. "N-particles are the key... Ever since detection became less haphazard, our job became just a little easier. Once we detect a heavy concentration, we simply lock an area down and proceed to flush out the... intruders using tried and trusted methods that I don't believe I have to spell out to any of you..."

"Sir...?"

He was surprised to be interrupted, and raised his eyebrows, glancing briefly at Agent Green where he sat near the door, as if wondering what he made of the question. Magnanimously, he turned to the eager student and allowed the question. "What is it?"

"Sir," said a very, very clean-cut man around thirty. "I understand that this is heavily classified. But what I don't understand is how none of us have heard even the vaguest rumor up to now... I mean, if this is really going on..."

"You doubt it...?"

"Well, uh, no sir... I just"-

-"You know what the President himself would say if you were to make the mistake of asking him what he thought of these incursions, son...?"

"Well, sir, I imagine he would be cautious in venturing"-

-"He would say, _What incursions?_ and if I couldn't quickly convince him he didn't need to worry himself about it, we would need a new President real quick..." said Brown, eliciting a few gasps throughout the room. Was he serious...? His stony features soon assured them on that point - He was always serious.

"Sir...?" said another of the chiseled, immaculately-suited listeners - Almost certainly another FBI agent, like the majority of the Section's recruits, and an A plus among A pluses - Only the very best were considered. _Why then_ , thought Brown, did they still need to be told things they should get without his hand-holding...? "About this first dimensional anomaly, sir..."

"Details!" erupted Brown. "Details like that, you will find in your official briefing notes. Study them. Study them well, for you will not be taking them off these premises. Do we understand each other...?!"

* * *

"That went well" said Green as they hurried down a long corridor.

"It went OK" said Brown.

"Relax, OK... Those guys are the best of the best... We'll soon have them up to our level, and finally you'll have the numbers you've said all along we need."

"Relax?" That was said scornfully.

"Yes, absolutely. With respect, I feel you worry too much."

"You know what really worries me?" Brown stopped and faced his second-in-command. "What if something happened to me? Are you ready, Green...?" As Green thought about his answer, Brown cut him short. "No, don't hurry to answer that."

He walked on.

* * *

"OK..." Casey pondered. "Was everybody else always crazy, and I just never noticed before the last few days...?" He quickened his pace a little to catch up with Shadow, who had gone a little ahead. Their footsteps echoed in the wide hallway with its molded plastic floor covering. "Just... When you said you had something to show me, with all the other stuff that's been going on, I kinda assumed it'd, you know, have something to do with that stuff... Huh...?"

"Right" said Shadow.

"I mean, a library...?" He looked askance.

"Don't worry, you won't catch anything..." she replied. "Though, now I think about it, you might just crumble into dust or something."

"Hey, I've read _books_..."

"Which ones...?"

"Uh... Most of 'em, I guess. I dunno. I forget. Uh..." He clicked his fingers. "No, it's gone again."

"You don't fool me, Casey."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I said too much."

"Well, that makes a change. Know what I mean?"

"All right..." She stopped. " _This_ you can't be _that_ different, that's all I'm saying."

"Well, uh, thanks..." he said, rubbing his nose. "That pretty much clears everything up."

* * *

"So what are we looking for...?" he asked, more confused than ever, as Shadow rooted around the shelves of the kid's section of the smalltown public library. She seemed to find what she was looking for, and handed the slim volume over to him.

"Right, yeah... Thanks. What am I supposed to do with this?" He looked around, and caught a couple of people giving them slightly questioning glances. Even Shadow was a little old to be here, in the normal scheme of things.

"Read the cover."

"Yeah, I read it. Thought it was a little slow, but I kinda enjoyed it."

"What does it say?" she asked patiently.

"Benny the Elephant."

"And what should it say?"

"Help me out here... What's the right answer?"

"You said it yourself. Benjy the Elephant. You weren't wrong."

"Are you sure...? 'Cause, uh, it really looks like I was."

She produced another book from the small bag she was carrying, the bag that hadn't left her person since their flight from the trailer. Another book...? No, the same book. Except...

"What does that say?"

" _Benjy the Elephant_ " he replied, resigned. "Guess this, uh, _Margery Fellman_ was a little indecisive, huh?"

"Yeah, that's right..." she replied. "There was a while there she just couldn't make up her mind. And right then a whole new set of universes sprang up, some where she named her elephant _Benny_ and some where it was _Benjy_ instead. You're starting to understand now."

"So what's so important about this book?"

"Nothing. At least, nothing as far as we know. But for some reason that decision was a key nexus point in the multiverse"-

-"Multiverse, huh?" Casey smirked.

"Multiverse, yeah... and if your life depended on knowing all about this stuff, you'd be talking multiverses and nexus points like there was no tomorrow as well... Casey Jones, I have news for you..."

"What?"

"Your life does depend on it, and... There might not be a tomorrow."

* * *

Casey was still grappling with the enormity of it all, and the sheer _strangeness_ , as they walked back to the parking lot. Frankly, he didn't think Shadow was being all that helpful. _Multiverses...? Nexus points...? Huh...?_

And it all had something to do with him...? How come all this stuff had been happening to him and he was the last one to find out about it? Wasn't that just typical of his life? "So..." he said. "There's just one thing I don't understand."

"OK..." Shadow replied. "Wait... Really...? _One_ thing?"

"You're saying I've been to all these universes, without knowing it. Right?"

"No, not all of 'em. That would be impossible. But you're definitely not in the universe _this_ you was born in. You're kinda... one of those people who's... unstuck. Adrift, if you see what I mean. It's like, most people are anchored in one reality, and just a small handful kinda drift through the gaps. Most of the time they don't notice. Nobody notices, because the reality they shift to isn't that different. Just, say... A farmer in Brazil sleeps in that morning instead of getting up early, or something like that. But sometimes... The differences are a little more obvious, and you notice stuff."

"Like April." He thought about that. "So _my_ April is back in another universe, wondering where I got to... I _hope_. Why is she so different here?"

Shadow shrugged. "Maybe she has a different mother, maybe both parents are the same but something else happened differently, I dunno... but she still ends up pretty much the same person, except in appearance." Remembering what else he had said, she added "Oh, yeah... Most likely you got replaced by another Casey, more or less the same, and life went on as normal. Well, as normal as it gets for you. Maybe he looks a little different, and it's her who's feeling weird about it."

"Great. Thanks for that. I'm replaced, huh...? Can I get back there?"

"I don't see how."

" _You_ got here, knowing that's what you were doing. You and your mom... Right?"

"That was different. Plus, we weren't making for this reality specifically... We were just... trying to get anywhere. To escape what was coming."

"And what exactly is that?"

On their way across the parking bay, they stopped. She was about to answer his question, trying to find the words, when her head snapped round. They were in danger, and she had been so caught up in their conversation she had just blundered into it...!

"You know..." said Brown, hefting the n-particle detector as several of his agents fanned out around them, guns leveled, "We catch more of them outside libraries than anywhere else... Why do you think that is?"

* * *

"You know what...?" pondered Casey once the two of them had been cuffed and secured in the back of a car. "I've been thinking about it, and the more I think the more I'm starting to wonder... Maybe it _was_ Benny the Elephant..."

* * *

**Next: Invaders From Dimension X!**


	10. Invaders From Dimension X!

**(What Casey Did Next, part 4)**

* * *

No one knew for a long time where they came from... They just seemed to erupt into existence out of nowhere, their armies of mechanical men and vast armadas of unimaginably destructive weaponry coming down upon world after world like the vengeance of the gods... Cruel gods. No one knew what they were, or what they wanted - at first.

When at last some information started to filter through, many wished it had stayed that way. Ignorance was bliss.

* * *

**The universe next door...**

"Here... We'll be safe here..." her mother gasped, putting down the heavy pack and resting the shotgun on the ground, rubbing her bruised shoulder. Much good as the shotgun wasn't, it was still reassuring.

"Why... Why are we safe here...?" Shadow mumbled. "What's so different about this place?"

"What's different is it's old... Thirty years or so, so they said... It was built before the rips started happening, and nobody has been down here..."

"So we're spoiling it for everybody else, huh...?" Shadow peered at a metal plate fixed to the concrete wall with lettering on it - "ACME...? Is that a real thing...? I thought that was just Wile E Coyote-" She looked round. "Mom?"

"Back then, everybody was afraid of the bomb..." her mother said, shining the flashlight down the corridor. "They didn't know there was even worse around the corner..."

"So why are we here...?"

"Supplies... And somewhere I might be able to power this thing up for another try..."

"So we're really doing this, huh...? Going to another universe..."

"We have to try. There's no hope left here, maybe there's some somewhere else. Maybe... this time they won't follow..."

Shadow eyed the bulky hand-held device. "They built that thing, huh...? So why should we trust it?"

"It's keyed into the next universe to ours... The shortest distance... Oh, I don't know, that's just what they told me..."

"There's already some of the resistance over there, huh...? _So_ , the fight continues..."

"Not for us. We're not soldiers. We'll just hide and hope they don't find us. Hope someone else finds a way to... I don't know. Stop them. Somehow."

"Mom... I think, before this is over, _all of us_ might have to become soldiers."

* * *

They had evolved somewhere else, somewhere incredibly different... Somewhere with vast toxic oceans full of vicious predators. They were small and fragile, but they were smart. Smarter than anything else. Smart enough to take themselves beyond the influence of evolution and make themselves masters of any environment they wished - If their spindly bodies wouldn't survive even mild fluctuations of temperature or pressure, and if the gases that gave life to most other creatures were hostile to them, they would case themselves in stronger durable bodies of metal. They would arm themselves with weapons that would make them feared light years, galaxies, whole universes beyond the backwater world that spawned them...

The Utroms were coming.

* * *

**This universe... depending where you're from...**

"Before we get there..." Green mused. "Trust me, you want to tell me everything you know."

"That's what you think, pal..." said Casey. "I'm telling it all to Colonel Sanders, Ronald McDonald and Mister Rogers, and nobody else... Well, maybe Oprah, 'cause, why wouldn't you...?"

They were in the spacious back of a department car, racing back to headquarters, and Green was running out of time trying to make these people see reason. He looked over at the girl - _Shadow_ , or whatever her real name was - she had stayed quiet throughout the journey, and he sensed it was her he really had to get through to. The man was definitely more intelligent than he wanted them to see, but really - There was only _so_ much time...

"You let him speak for you...?" The girl shrugged. Green looked back at Casey. "We'll be checking your identity. By the time we get back, we'll have figured out who you are..."

"Well, don't let those overdue library books make you judge me too harshly, huh...? There's lots of sides to me."

"That I can believe... And it's funny you should mention libraries... On the mind, perhaps...?"

"Ask Benjy, pal..." Casey looked at Shadow - "Benny...?" She shrugged again. He turned abruptly back to Green. "Who was that other guy... Your boss man..."

"Agent Brown."

"Yeah... I wanna talk to him."

"Why?"

"He had a kind face."

"You really don't wanna talk to him."

"Hey pal, one thing I figured long since, don't talk to the Indian when you can talk to the Chief direct. It saves a lotta time."

"He went ahead. Honestly, you don't want to be interrogated by him if it can possibly be avoided. Tell _me_ all you know, and..."

"Did he interrogate my mother...?" asked Shadow quietly, without looking at him.

"Yes" said Green, after only a brief pause.

"And Gabe..." said Casey. "What about Gabe?"

"Yes... He was interrogated and released shortly after."

"Released...?" said Casey incredulously, and Shadow briefly looked up. "Wanna try that one again, pal?"

"True, I swear... By the time Brown was finished, he was considered harmless, and perfectly safe to release."

" _That's_ not Gabe..." Casey mused.

Green looked at him steadily. "It is now."

* * *

The small convoy of department cars was specifically designed not to draw attention to itself, and conducted its journeys in absolute need-to-know secrecy - Still, the attackers knew when and where to intercept it. On a quiet, lonely road they hit, and hit hard.

The explosion shook the car and nearly drove it off the road. "What was that...?!" cried Casey, doing his best to shield Shadow even though she didn't really want to be shielded and would much sooner get a look out the windows.

"Stay there...!" yelled Green.

"You're kiddin', right...? We're cuffed."

Reluctantly, Green released them - He didn't want them to be trapped if the car caught fire. "Stay there...!" he yelled again. "I'm not going far, and I won't be gone long...!"

Casey and Shadow exchanged glances. "Sure thing..." said Casey, and they both smiled.

* * *

Green couldn't believe what he was seeing. Within a couple of minutes, several of his people lay dead, falling not to conventional gunfire but to the bright flashes of some kind of plasma energy weapon, something as far as he knew well beyond the technology of the world circa nineteen-ninety- "Aaaaaaahhhhh...!"

The explosion threw him sideways, and he heard a sickening crack - A moment later, the pain hit. Collar bone - had to be. Getting up as best he could, he drew his gun - in the wrong hand, but with his training that only made him slightly less effective - and tried to find a target.

He found a target... and his jaw dropped.

The machines advanced. Man-shaped mechanical devices - androids - man-shaped, yes, but too spindly around the middle to be suits of body-armor. They fired at anything that moved, and they were totally resistant to bullets, so Green dropped.

Then he remembered - the prisoners. They must be secured at all costs. He crawled back in the direction of the car... And was just in time to see his two prisoners dart across the road and disappear into the trees.

His attention was caught by something else - one of his own people, dead near him on the ground. Incredulously, Green inspected what he thought he had seen around the man's wound, and uncovered the gaping hole full not of blood but with sparking electronic circuitry...

Mind reeling, Green succumbed and lay on the ground, blacked out.

* * *

"OK, girl wonder, I don't mind admitting, I'm all out of ideas right now...!" Casey gasped.

"That's OK... No shame in that, you've been doing great... Fortunately, I got plenty more..."

"You have, huh...?"

"Yep."

"So what's our destination?"

"For now, right round in a big circle and when all _that_ has calmed down a little... Before they have the chance to swoop in and close it all off... In we go and use these..." - She held up the ignition keys of the car they had been held in - "To get ourselves out of here... Then we ditch the car a few miles from here, and then I hope you'll have figured something else out..."

"Well... I got _my_ car... Bit of a wreck right now, but it'll get us somewhere to lie low for a while..."

"Lie low...?" Her head turned and she thought carefully - "I think I got somewhere we can do that."

* * *

"That'll do."

"Well, uh, thanks..." Casey looked up from his work burying his car among the foliage. "This car and me, we've been through a lot and all, but I never thought I'd have to _bury_ her..."

"Oh, quit your whining..." Shadow said that with a smile.

"Yes, ma'am... You're, uh, planning to lie low in the woods, is that it... I mean, I got camping experience, but even so..."

"No, we're not camping. I got something much, much better."

"OK."

"And then... I dunno, I go find Gabe."

" _We_ go find Gabe. And your mother."

"She's dead."

He looked at her for a long moment as they walked. "You're sure...?"

"Sure."

"Sorry."

"Yeah." She picked up their pace. "It's this way."

* * *

Shadow led them round the grounds of a big old mansion, and they saw some signs of it being inhabited, maybe by a couple of servants keeping the home fires lit and nothing more - Casey had been skeptical, and certainly hadn't been expecting to be led through the secret entrance and down all the stairs and then down the long tunnel into... This.

"So this place just shuts itself up in the event of nuclear kerblam..." mused Casey. "Closes itself up for how long...?"

"Depends how long its programmed for..." replied Shadow as they cautiously explored the shelter. "The computer is pretty old now, and I'm not sure how often it gets maintained... So, just be careful, don't touch anything in here till we've had a chance to find out everything."

"Hey, I'm Mister Don't Touch, OK...? _'Hell_ , they got supplies... Good for a while, I'd say. Months, years even... Who'd you say this place belongs to...?"

"I didn't." She shrugged. "Some rich asshole"-

-"Swear jar... We need a swear jar for you, young lady."

"Does it matter who it belongs to...?" She peered at a dial on the control console, and read out "Six months, huh...? Automatic shutdown for six months minimum - No opening it till the automatic lock releases at the end of those six months... No override... Seriously, don't touch anything."

"Hey, it's _me_ , OK..." Casey got his jacket snagged on something, and pulled to free it. - _"Shutdown procedure initiated..."_ droned the toneless prerecorded voice from a speaker on the wall. _"Shutdown imminent... Containment procedures are in progress..."_

They looked at each other, eyes widening, both realizing at the same pace what had just happened. "Go - Now!" They both raced down the corridor for the exit as fast as they could, Shadow in the lead, and as they approached and the wheel-shaped door ponderously rolled closed Casey virtually threw the girl ahead of him... She made it through with inches to spare...

He didn't.

They stood there, either side of the sealed door, out of breath. They looked at each other through the transparent panel at his eye height - She had to stand on tiptoes.

"What now...?" she said, speaking loudly but voice muffled and faint through the thick quadruple-glazed panel.

"How, uh, how long did it say this thing would seal itself for...?" Casey asked, although his memory was actually pretty good - He just wanted to put off dealing with this for a few moments.

Six months. Six months.

Six months.

"Six months..." she mouthed silently.

"Six months" he said aloud.

Six months.

 _"Six months..."_ her voice crackled, startlingly loud - "Huh...?!" Casey started. "Wh-a?"

She pointed to where he could speak into the intercom, and once he was set, ironically, the two of them had little to say. "Uh... See you in six months...?" he asked. "I figure I should _walk_ parole..."

"Yeah..." she said, still dazed.

"Actually..." he said, thinking furiously - "Don't be _here_ in six months. I'll come find you... Uh, go to New York, OK... Find April O'Neil... Trust me, she won't be difficult to find. She's pretty famous..." He quickly made her memorize April's address. "Now, you got that, huh...?"

She smiled. "I should... You know, get going..."

"Right. See you in six months and a little bit, OK...?"

"Maybe tomorrow, I'll wanna settle down..." sang Shadow, and smiled.

"Just keep movin' on, huh...?" Good to know _The Littlest Hobo_ wasn't unique to his universe - whichever one that was.

"I'm not good at goodbyes..." she said.

"Me neither."

She hung up, and was gone. Casey took a while to hang up the intercom, and turned away to inspect his new home.

* * *

Shadow looked at the device in her hands with very mixed feelings. _"Kaput..."_ she said finally, and having made the decision she kicked it into the dense undergrowth. " _'_ _Bye_ , you stupid piece of... _Ah_!" She waved her hand dismissively, and turned away, following the sounds of traffic faint in the distance - "They gotta have hitchhiking in this universe too, right...? _Bright lights_ , here I come..."

* * *

Green walked into the department briefing room with his arm supported by a sling and in a state of nervous exhaustion, but still somehow he rallied enough for the confrontation he was expecting to face. Brown was there, of course, looking infuriatingly calm and unflappable, along with another man in military uniform - a full United States General, no less.

"Sir, I"-

-"This is General Bydek."

Green gave Bydek a brief nod, before continuing. "Sir, I wish to report, although I suspect you already know, that our department has been infiltrated"-

- _"Let me see him..."_ a voice said. _"Let me see him properly..."_ It was a peculiar voice, gravelly and hoarse, and the strangest thing about it was that it was coming from underneath General Bydek's uniform jacket...! As Green watched incredulously, Bydek unbuttoned the jacket and the shirt underneath to bare his torso - Green automatically looked away, though his glance kept darting back and forth.

"Sir, I... These are very peculiar events, sir... I don't wish to see, uh..." He looked.

 _It_ looked back.

Inside Bydek's torso - his apparently hollow, _artificial_ torso - a creature inhabited a sac full of murky liquid. Pink - no, more mauve, actually - in color, it was mostly a face with a tiny vestigial body. Bydek just stood calmly holding his shirt open to allow the creature a proper view of the room, clearly unconcerned by the inhabitant where his internal organs ought to be - Green took a good look at Bydek for the first time, and registered the very infrequent rate at which he blinked. Some sort of device, rather than a man...? Who had the technology...?

"Will he _host_...?" the creature rasped, addressing Brown.

"I don't think so..." Brown replied. "Not for some time yet." - Green looked back and forth between the two of them, like they were crazy people... Well, crazy at least - "We're not who you think we are..." Brown began.

" _You_ had us kill people..." Green accused. "Actual _people_ people. And all the time, you're..." He looked up at Brown, eyes widening. "You as well... Right...?"

 _"Right..."_ said a muffled rasping voice from beneath Brown's suit.

"That was unfortunate but necessary..." said Brown. "We had to protect ourselves." He paused. "I am quite human, I assure you... At least my consciousness is... I would be dead by now - lung cancer - if it wasn't for them... They made me an offer I just couldn't refuse. Not with so much left to learn, and accomplish..."

"But those things that attacked our party... That was you...!"

"Not us... The advance guard of a very nasty individual... Hitler, Genghis Khan, Napoleon... Nothing on this guy, trust me."

"Trust _you_... Good one, sir..." Green had his gun drawn, but Brown did not draw his. "You were in a _position_ of trust. You _had_ my trust. You blew it."

" _He_ is coming after us..." Brown said. " _And_ he is coming for you... _All_ of you. He will stop at nothing to take what he wants from this place..."

"OK... I'll bite... Who is coming...? And what does he want...?"

"Actually", Brown digressed, " _He_ is a hermaphrodite, but to answer your question... He wants the Keystone, and his name is Krang."

* * *

After one more attempt to get out by brute force, really just for the hell of it more than anything else, Casey emerged from the storage room and his stocktaking of the shelter in a slightly more upbeat frame of mind. At least now he was sure he wasn't going to starve... The least said about the water recycling, however, the better. _Ah well_ , water was water.

Six months...? He sat down, and put his head in his hands. Then he looked up at nothing in particular. Six months...?

Six months...?

Six months... Well, it was just a little less now...

"OK..." he pondered. "Let's, uh, make the best of this... What kind of entertainment did this guy have...? _Oooh_ , home cinema... Old school."

* * *

**New York - a little over 6 months later...  
**

"So..." April started, linking her arm with Casey's as they walked away from the now-locked storage unit and back out onto the streets of New York - "You're definitely not mad at me for messing up your motorcycle...?"

" _No_ , not really" he replied.

" _'Cause_ , you know, I'm a little cut up about it too... I- I really got to like that bike...!"

"Yeah" Casey said noncommittally.

April raised a foot off the ground and slapped her thigh. " _And_ I bought leather pants specially... _Not_ cheap" Her smile was infectious, and Casey quickly had one to match.

"Which, y'know, you're wearing now..." he observed. "The bike was totaled, like, six months ago or something...?"

"Yeah..." she replied flippantly. " _'Think_ I might be having trouble letting go..."

This time he outright chuckled - "You'd be making it kinda difficult to stay mad... If you know, I _was_ mad at you, which I ain't."

They walked contentedly for a while, before April started again on a different tack. "And you're not mad at me for... anything else...?"

"Like what?"

"Calling you Whit...? I promise I won't do it again."

"Nah."

"Or... the other thing."

"What other thing?"

"Shadow...? I swear to you, Casey, if I had known, I would have tried harder.* I would have made her stay. I'd-"

"-How'd you know I was thinking about her...? _Nah_ , I don't blame you for that. I know you did all you could. I'll find her... We'll find her. Somehow."

"Or there's... the other, other thing."

"Now you really got me."

"I dunno... It's just, for a while now, the way you've looked at me... It's been like I'm a stranger or something."

"Yeah... Sorry about that."

"I mean, we're friends aren't we...?" April inquired, tightening her grip a little on his arm and looking up at him. "No grudges, no weirdness...?"

" _No_... I mean, _yeah_... 'course we are..." said Casey. "It's... There _was_ a weird thing going on, but it's _my_ problem... _Y'know what_ , I think it's gonna be just fine."

"Just fine, huh...?" She seemed unconvinced.

"Just fine" he repeated confidently. "You had breakfast yet?"

" _Casey_ , it's almost noon."

He looked nonplussed. "That's not too early for breakfast."

* * *

 _"You should be able to see them any minute now..."_ the woman said slowly, adjusting the focus of her very sophisticated spyglass on the two figures walking away into the distance. "Yeah... He's tall, she's not... Both brown-hair, his is long, he's denim jacket over white T-shirt, faded jeans, she's yellow plastic rain jacket and black leather pants. Very pretty, both of 'em - You won't miss 'em... In fact, you better _not_ miss 'em."

She straightened up, now both her subjects were too far away to see her, and ran a hand through her unruly reddish-brown hair before stifling an exhausted yawn. She had pale grey eyes and was about April's age - Almost exactly April's age, in fact. Over her loose check shirt and cargo shorts, she wore the same yellow plastic rain jacket.

 _"What's so important about these two...?"_ the voice crackled from the communications device on the ledge in front of her, and the woman picked it up. "If you really needed to know..." said April O'Neil - Another, different, April O'Neil - "You already would... Just don't _lose_ them."

* * *

* See chapters 1-5

* * *

**Next: Night of the Rat**


End file.
